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DISCOURSE 



STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY. 



U^ 



ADAM SEDGWICK, M.A. F.K.S. cSzc. 

WOODWARDIAN PROFESSOR 
AND FFXI.OW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAJIBRIDGE. 




CAMBRIDGE : 

PRINTED, AT THE PITT PRESS, BY JOHN SMITH, 
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY. 

JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND, LONDON 

DEIGHTONS, AND STEVENSON, CAMBRIDGE. 



M.DCCC.XXXIII. 



^^ 






> 



THE MASTER, 



FELLOWS AND STUDENTS 



TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 



ESPECIALLY TO THOSE AT WHOSE REQUEST 



IT IS PUBLISHED, 



THE FOLLOWING DISCOURSE 



IS DEDICATED 



BY THEIR AFFECTIONATE AND FAITHFUL SERVANT 



THE AUTHOR. 



J> 



PREFACE. 



The substance of the following discourse was delivered 
in the Chapel of Trinity College, on the day of the annual 
Commemoration in December last, and is published at the 
request of the junior members of the Society, to whom it 
was more immediately addressed. As the long delay in its 
publication requires some apology, the Author begs leave to 
state, that the request, on which he is now acting, first 
reached him during the Christmas vacation, when he was 
absent from the University ; and that for some weeks after 
his return he was so much occupied in completing a course 
of lectures and in passing two memoirs through the press, 
that the Lent Term had nearly expired before he had time 
to revise his MS for the printer. Without any further delay 
it was then struck off as far as page 28 ; and he hoped to 
have published it at the commencement of the Easter Term. 

During its progress through the press he found however 
that he had undertaken a more difficult task than he had 
imagined : for having animadverted with much freedom on 
some parts of the Cambridge course of reading, he felt himself 
compelled, before he dared to give what he had written to the 
public, to enter at more length on a justification of his opinions. 
On this account, his remarks on the classical, metaphysical, 
and moral studies of the University (extending from p. 28 
to p. 77) were cast over again, and expanded to at least 
three times their original length. 



VI PKEFACK. 



Before this part of his task was completed, an attack of 
indisposition compelled him for a short time to quit the 
University; and on his return the languor of ill health, and 
a series of engagements of which it is not necessary here to 
speak, prevented him from immediately resuming it : so that 
the latter part of this discourse was not printed till a late 
period in the Easter Term, when most of the junior Mem- 
bers had left the University for the long vacation. On this 
account (as the Appendix was not written, and perhaps he 
ought to add, as the determination fell in with the ready 
excuses of a procrastinating spirit) he resolved not to publish 
before the University reassembled in the October Term. 

Lest he should be accused of printing a discourse too 
widely differing from the one he was requested to publish, 
he wishes to state, that (with the exception of mere verbal 
corrections) it is, as far as p. 28, in the form in which it 
was first written, and that the conclusion has undergone no 
change : and in the two parts which have been so much 
expanded, he has preserved the scope and sentiments, and in 
many instances the very words of his first sketch. The notes 
added in an Appendix are not written to serve any purpose 
of ostentation. By most academic persons they may be con- 
sidered unnecessary : but should a single reader find them of 
use in explaining or enforcing what is stated in the text, the 
Author will not regret that he has written them. 

He has attacked the utilitarian theory of morals, not 
merely because he thinks it founded on false reasoning, but 
because he also believes that it produces a degrading effect on 
the temper and conduct of those who adopt it. It is, how- 
ever, more easy to pull down than to build up ; and he thinks 
it unfortunate that there is no English work on morals at once 
unexceptionable in its principles, and cast in such a form as 



PREFACE. Vll 

to meet the wants of the University. Bishop Butler's three 
Sermons on Human Nature and his Dissertation on the Nature 
of Virtue have lately become subjects of examination in Trinity 
College. Of their kind, they are works of inestimable value : 
but they are devoted rather to the discussion of the principles 
of morality than to the establishment of a system of moral 
philosophy ; and they are considered by most persons, who 
begin to speculate on such questions, both difficult and un- 
inviting. 

Before concluding this Preface, the Author disclaims any 
notion of holding out the following pages as a formal dis- 
sertation on academic studies. Such an attempt would be far 
above his powers ; not falling in with his usual habits of thought, 
and requiring research for which he has neither time nor 
inclination. What is here printed treats of subjects treated 
of a hundred times before, and professes no originality, ex- 
cept what it derives from the circumstances under which it 
was delivered and the persons to whom it was addressed. 
Should it be the means of leading even a small number of 
them to think more justly on any of the subjects of academic 
learning ; and to combine moral and religious habits of 
thought with those severe physical studies, during which the 
best faculties of the mind are sometimes permitted to droop 
and wither, his most earnest wishes will be accomplished. 

Trinity College, Cambridge, 
Nov. 5, 1833. 



A 



DISCOURSE, 



Psalm CXVI. I7, 18, 19- 

/ 7vill offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the 
name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the 
presence of all his people. In the courts of the Lord's house, in 
the midst of thee, Jerusalem. Praise ye the Lord. 

How beautiful and how varied are the forms of praise 
and thanksgiving in the book of Psalms ! They appear as the 
outpourings of a grateful heart before God for the glories of 
his creation — for succour in the hour of danger — for deliverance 
from affliction — for national privileges — and for anticipated 
salvation. There is an earnestness in many of them that lays 
hold upon our strongest sympathies : for (without speaking of 
their inspired and prophetic character) they may be truly said 
to spring from feelings which are natural to every man who 
is not utterly debased, and in the exercise of which generous 
tempers ever take delight. The words I have chosen are the 
conclusion of a Psalm composed by one who had been raised 
up from some great affliction — his soul had been delivered 
from death, his eyes from tears, and his feet from falling. 
I quote them however with no reference to the purpose for 
which they were first uttered, but because they are well fitted 
for the occasion that brings us together — to offer in the courts 
of the Lord's house the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and to call 
upon the name of the Lord. 

A 



2 

A well disciplined mind may perhaps learn to see every 
thing with an eye of faith, so as to find, in all the dispensations 
of Providence, a motive for the exercise of holiness. But 
many of us are, I fear, too little endowed with a spirit leading 
to a contemplation of God in the common bounties of his 
creation : our spiritual sluggishness requires something more 
exciting than sensations arising from large and general views 
of God's providence — something which comes immediately 
to our own hearts and bosoms, and seems to bear upon our 
personal happiness. When the body is weighed down by 
sickness, or the spirits sunk by present affliction, the glories 
of this world fade away before us ; and we seek, or at 
least as Christian men we ought to seek, our proper con- 
solation in looking to that heavenly kingdom which suffers 
no change, and into which sorrow finds no entrance : and 
after the clouds lately gathered round us are passed away 
and we are conscious of a great deliverance, the feelings of 
our hearts (unless quite dead to religious sense) will burst 
forth in the language of praise and thanksgiving. In like 
manner, though perhaps in less degree, on the national anni- 
versary, the religious festival, or the solemn commemoration, 
thoughts seemingly extinct within us will start into new life, 
and trains of association will arise, lifting our thoughts above 
the selfishness and sensuality of the world, and fixing them 
on our noblest destinies. 

And let me here observe, that the fact of our receiving 
impressions like these (however interrupted, and by whatever 
means excited), is an evidence that the spirit of religion is 
not dead within us. By the blessing of God, the spark 
now burning but dimly may be excited to a flame, which 
shall refine the corruptions of our hearts, and become the 
animating principle of our lives. On this account, every vi- 
sitation tending to alienate our affections from the world ought 
to be considered as the warning voice of God addressed to 



ourselves, and not to be despised ; and every solemnity of 
religion (whether public or private), having the power of 
touching the heart and acting on our better feelings, is to be 
regarded as a merciful invitation of God, and never to be 
rejectedo 

Sentiments such as these are surely fitted for the occasion 
on which we meet ; to return thanks to God for the mercies 
he has vouchsafed to us — to recount the names of those pious 
benefactors to whom we owe the peaceful abode of learning 
and science wherein we dwell — to place before the mind's eye 
those illustrious men who have inhabited this our Zion, and 
obtained for themselves a name imperishable as the records 
of our race. These men are to us in the place of a glorious 
ancestry, urging us by their example to an emulation of their 
deeds ^ and we are unworthy sons if we turn a deaf ear to 
that voice by which they still seem to speak to us. 

Among them were found many to join the foremost rank 
of those who in ancient times emancipated this country from 
spiritual bondage ; to partake in the great work of translating 
the records of our faith into our native tongue, and to put 
forth their whole intellectual strength in diffusing the light 
of Christian truth among the people. 

In their lists we read the name of Bacon, who, gifted almost 
with prophetic spirit, was enabled to climb the Pisgah of 
science, and point out the land of promise to those who were 
to follow him — of Newton, who after having achieved, by 
his single arm, the conquest of the natural world, was not 
puiFed up, but gave God the glory ; combining, with powers 
which never fell to the share of any other man, the simplicity 
of a child, and the humility of a Christian — of Ray, who 
saw the finger of God in the whole frame-work of animated 
nature, and within these very walls taught the listeners to com- 
prehend the meaning of those characters he himself had first 
interpreted — of Barrow, the learned and the wise, the inventive 

a2 



philosopher, the manly reasoner, the eloquent and single- 
minded christian moralist — and of many other illustrious 
men, whose very names time would fail me to tell, who having 
had their minds braced by the studies of this place, and their 
hearts sanctified by the wisdom from above, devoted themselves 
to the high and sacred office of extending the empire of truth. 

And surely the happiness we enjoy and the names we 
this day commemorate, require something more from us than 
the gratitude of the lips — something more than a formal and 
heartless ceremonial. We are here met at our annual cele- 
bration where these mighty men have met before; we are 
worshipping at the altar where they worshipped, we are treading 
on their ashes, and looking on their tombs, and every thing 
around us is sanctified by their genius. 

Circumstances like these have ever exerted a powerful 
influence on generous natures. If heathen men have felt them, 
and made them the topics of exhortation and the mainsprings of 
national honour, how much more ought they to affect us who 
are assembled as a Christian brotherhood. We believe that 
the glorious names we commemorate are not those of men who 
have perished without hope ; but that having fought the good 
fight in this life, they have received a crown of glory in that 
which is to come. They seem to speak to us from their tombs, 
but with no earthly voice, encouraging us by their example, 
and telling us to be firm and of good cheer in this our pilgrim- 
age — that beyond the dark portal to which we all are hurrying 
there is a land of promise — and that treading in the steps where 
they have trodden, and guided by the heavenly hand which 
guided them, we ourselves may reach that land and dwell with 
them in everlasting glory. 

The influence of domestic example is I think to be recog- 
nized in the institutions of every nation. In all of them, 
under some form or other, we find the traces of hereditary 
rank and of transmitted authority : and in infant societies. 



those institutions did not, I believe, commence in assumed 
physical superiority, but rather in the experience of moral 
fitness. 

It is not wise for us too nicely to canvass the decrees 
of Omnipotence : some of them we can partially comprehend — 
some of them must ever remain hidden from our sight. We 
are however justified in saying that in the moral as in the 
physical world, God seems to govern by general laws : and 
when he declares to us, that he will visit the sins of the 
fathers on their children ; and that he will have mercy on 
thousands in them that love him and obey him ; we hear 
not a new and despotic annunciation contrary to the or- 
dinary operations of his moral government; but rather we 
hear a formal promulgation and a higher sanction of them. 
It is true as a matter of fact, that some races and kindreds 
are favoured above the rest of men — that God shews mercy 
to them in thousands, spreading among them the light of truth, 
and exalting them above the other nations of the earth. 
But these temporal blessings, I repeat, are not violations, but 
examples of the moral government of God ; for in the nature 
of things they only co-exist with the exercise of those moral 
and intellectual qualities which bind men and families together, 
and form the very sinews of national strength. When the les- 
sons and the examples of virtue fail, the nation's strength fails 
with them ; the voice of eloquence, and the maxims of wisdom 
are no longer heard within its walls, and its proudest monu- 
ments soon moulder into the dust ; or if they remain at all, 
are visited in after times as mighty ruins, serving only to 
contrast its former glory with its present desolation. 

It is then our bounden duty to reflect, that our sentiments 
and our conduct do not terminate with ourselves. Every man 
however humble his station and feeble his powers, exercises 
some influence on those who are about him for good or for 
evil: and these influences emanating again as from a fresh 



6 



center, are propagated onwards — and though diluted by new 
motives, and modified by new circumstances at each trans- 
mission, so as in common cases to be lost to the eye of man, 
they may still go on producing a silent effect to the remotest 
generations; and thus become, under Providence, a part of 
the appointed means by which a nation's glory is continued, 
and its strength upheld. 

What I have said of nations, is true also of families or 
households like our own. If we have received a goodly in- 
heritance we ought to transmit it unimpaired to our children. 
It matters not to us that the light of truth has been shed 
abroad by those who have gone before us, if we be living 
in intellectual darkness. It is not our honour, but our shame, 
that the wise and good have dwelt within these walls, if they 
have now no living representatives. Self-examination is there- 
fore among the most important duties of this solemnity ; nor 
is it to be a mere idle and inoperative retrospect, but must be 
followed by prayer against intellectual pride and presumptuous 
sins — prayer for support in those resolves of which our con- 
sciences approve — prayer above all for that spirit which will 
lift us above the temptations of the world. If we be endowed 
with this temper, we bring a hallowed offering to the altar, 
and cannot doubt that the incense of our praise will mount 
up to the throne of grace, and bring down a blessing on 
our household. 

By the arrangements of Providence, things which to us 
seem good and evil are so blended in this life, that in the 
annual celebration of societies like our own, we are seldom 
permitted to meet with feelings of vinmixed joy. In thinking 
of the past glories of our body and of the mighty minds by 
which its animation has been continued, it is impossible for 
any one Avho has dwelt within its walls but a few short years, 
not to be struck with the changes in its moral aspect — not 
to be reminded of early prospects blighted, of the links of 



J 



friendship severed — not to have impressed upon his memory, 
that hearts but as yesterday warm with kindness, and tongues 
glowing with the accents of genius, are now cold and inanimate. 
The song of praise and the voice of thanksgiving ought 
therefore to be heard as notes of preparation ; telling us that 
this is not our abiding city — that with all the good things 
it contains, and the goodly recollections belonging to it, it 
is but a halting place in the great pilgrimage of life — and 
that before another returning festival, the names of some of u& 
may be also written on the long scroll of those who are de- 
parted. 

These, my brethren, seem to be sentiments not merely 
fitted for the occasion on which we meet, but such as must 
force themselves on every serious and reflecting mind. I must 
however content myself with this short allusion to them, 
as the time does not allow me to dwell on them any farther. 

Leaving then these general topics, I proceed to speak 
of this as a place of sound learning and christian education, 
and to inquire what ought to be the conduct of the under- 
standing during the course of our academic studies before we 
enter on the great theatre of life. What I am now saying, 
though I hope not altogether unfitting to other ears, is chiefly 
addressed to the younger members of our household. 

In the first place, let me put before you a law and con- 
dition of your being, of great influence in the formation of 
your characters. Impressions independent of the will, whe- 
ther produced directly through the senses, or by trains of 
association within the mind, gradually lose their power by 
repetition : but habits, whether of mind or body depending on 
a previous determination of the will, gain strength by their 
very exercise, so as at length to become a part of ourselves 
and an element of our happiness. It is to the operation of 
this law that we must refer some of the strangest contradictions 



8 

in human nature. What a melancholy contrast we too often 
find between the generous temper of youth, and the cold 
calculating spirit of a later period ! between the actions of a 
man at one time of his life and those of another ! I believe 
there is not one whom I am now addressing, who, if he reflect 
at all, will not acknowledge how much the cold hand of time 
has already chilled some of his better feelings. Now it is 
absolutely certain, that sensuality and other sins to which 
by nature man is prone, will do their work in marring the 
image of God, and (unless opposed by some countervailing 
principle) will end in habits making a wreck both of soul and 
body. In such a state of things a man becomes utterly spell- 
bound — he is in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of 
iniquity^ and has no power to help himself; and the hand 
of God alone can help him. 

I am not now contending for the doctrine of moral neces- 
sity ; but I do affirm that the moral government of God is by 
general laws ; and that it is our bounden duty to study those 
laws, and as far as we can to turn them to our account. As 
far, at least, as this world is concerned, the feelings on which 
we act in early life may and do diminish in their intensity, and 
yet we may go on in a course, honourable to ourselves and 
useful to our country, mainly by what is called the force of 
habit. Of what vast importance it is then, to those I am now 
addressing, many of whom have barely reached the dawn of 
manhood, to lay a good foundation against the coming time, by 
fostering habits of practical kindness, and self control — by 
mental discipline and study — ^by cultivating all those qualities 
which give elevation to the moral and intellectual character — 
in one word, by not wavering between right and wrong, but 
by learning the great lesson of acting strenuously and unhe- 
sitatingly on the light of conscience. 

The studies of this place, as far as they relate to mere 
human learning, divide themselves into three branches. 



1st. The study of the laws of nature, comprehending all 
parts of inductive philosophy. 

2dly. The study of ancient literature — or in other words, 
of those authentic records which convey to us an account of 
the feelings, the sentiments, and the actions, of men promi- 
nent in the history of the most famous empires of the ancient 
world. In these works we seek for examples and maxims of 
prudence and models of taste. 

Srdly. The study of ourselves, considered as individuals 
and as social beings. Under this head are included ethics, 
and metaphysics, moral and political philosophy, and some 
other kindred subjects of great complexity, hardly touched on 
in our academic system, and to be followed out in the more 
mature labours of after life. Our duty here is to secure a 
good foundation on which to build ; and to this end we must 
inquire what ought to be the conduct of the mind in entering 
on any of these great provinces of human learning. 

I. A study of the laws of nature for many years has 
been, and I hope ever will be, held up to honour in this 
venerable seat of the discoveries of Newton. But in this, as 
in every other field of labour, no man can put aside the curse 
pronounced on him — that by the sweat of his brow he shall 
reap his harvest. Before he can reach that elevation from 
whence he may look down upon and comprehend the mysteries 
of the natural world, his way is steep and toilsome, and he 
must read the records of creation in a strange, and to many 
minds, a repulsive language, which rejecting both the senses and 
the imagination, speaks only to the understanding. But when 
this language is once learnt, it becomes a mighty instrument 
of thought, teaching us to link together the phenomena of 
past and future times ; and gives the mind a domination over 
many parts of the material world, by teaching it to compre- 
hend the laws by which the actions of material things are 



10 

ti-overned. To follow in this track, first trodden by the immor- 
tal Newton — to study this language of pure unmixed truth, is 
to be regarded not only as your duty, but your high privi- 
lege. It is no servile task, no ungenerous labour. The laws 
by which God has thought good to govern the universe are 
surely subjects of lofty contemplation ; and the study of that 
symbolical language by which alone these laws can be fully 
decyphered, is well deserving of your noblest efforts. Studies 
of this kind not merely contain their own intellectual reward, 
but give the mind a habit of abstraction, most difficult to 
acquire by ordinary means, and a power of concentration of 
inestimable value in the business of life. Were there any 
doubt of this, I would appeal to modern examples, and point 
out a long list of illustrious men, who after being strength- 
ened by our severe studies and trained in our discipline have 
borne off the prize in the intellectual conflicts of their country. 
But I need not attempt to prove what no one is prepared to 
deny. 

Are there, however, no other consequences of these studies 
beyond those I have pointed to ? The moral capacities of man 
must not be left out of account in any part of intellectual dis- 
cipline. Now these severe studies are on the whole favourable 
to self control; for, without fastening on the mind through 
the passions and the senses, they give it not merely a power of 
concentration, but save it from the languor and misery arising 
from vacuity of thought — the origin of perhaps half the vices 
of our nature. 

Again, the study of the higher sciences is well suited to 
keep down a spirit of arrogance and intellectual pride: for, 
in disentangling the phenomena of the material world, we en- 
counter things which hourly tell us of the feebleness of our 
jiowers, and material combinations so infinitely beyond the 
reach of any intellectual analysis as to convince us at once 
of the narrow limitation of our faculties. In the power of 



11 

grasping abstract truth, and in the power of linking together 
remote truths by chains of abstract reasoning, we may be 
distinguished from the lower orders of the beings placed around 
us ; but, in the exercise of these powers, we bear perhaps no 
resemblance whatsoever to the supreme intellect. Applied to 
an Almighty Being with the attribute of ubiquity, in whose 
mind all things past and to come co-exist in eternal presence, 
time and space have no meaning, at least in that sense in 
which they are conditions of our own thoughts and actions. 
To him all truth is as by intuition ; by us truth is only ap- 
prehended through the slow and toilsome process of comparison. 
So that the powers and capacities, forming the very implements 
of our strength, are also the indications of our weakness. In 
some of our capacities, we may perhaps exhibit a faint shadow 
of a portion of our Maker's image ; but in the reasoning power, 
of which we sometimes vainly boast, we bear to him, I believe, 
no resemblance whatsoever. 

Simplicity of character, humility, and love of truth, ought 
therefore to be (and I believe generally have been) among the 
attributes of minds well trained in Philosophy. After all that 
has been done since the thoughts of man were first turned to 
the phenomena of the material world — after all the boasted 
discoveries of science, from the first records of civilization, 
down to our own days — those glorious passages of the Old 
Testament, contrasting the power and wisdom of God in the 
wonders of his creation, with man's impotence and ignorance, 
have still, and ever will continue to have, not merely a figu- 
rative or poetical, but a literal application. Gird up now 
thy loins like a man ; for I will demand of thee, and answer 
thou me^. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations 
of the earth ? declare, if thou hast understanding Where- 
upon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the 
corner-stone thereof ; when the morning-stars sang together, 

* Job, chap, xxxviii. 



12 



and all the sojis of God shouted for joy ? Or who shut up 
the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued 
out of the womb ? When I made the cloud the garment 
thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling hand for it.... and 
said, Hitherto shalt thou come, hut no further : and here shall 
thy proud waves he stayed ?.... Where is the way where light 
dwelleth ? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof . . . 
Knowest thou it, because thou wast then horn ? or because 
the number of thy days is great? 

Before such an interrogator, we can only bow in humble 
adoration. The stvidy of the laws of nature may strengthen 
and exalt the intellectual powers : but strange must be our 
condition of self-government and tortuous our habits of thought, 
if such studies be allowed to co-exist with self-love and arro- 
gance and intellectual pride. 

A study of the Newtonian philosophy, as affecting our 
moral powers and capacities (the subject I am now pressing 
on your thoughts), does not terminate in mere negations. It 
teaches us to see the finger of God in all things animate and 
inanimate, and gives us an exalted conception of his attributes, 
placing before us the clearest proof of their reality ; and so 
prepares, or ought to prepare, the mind for the reception of 
that higher illumination, whicli brings the rebellious faculties 
into obedience to the divine will. 

We learn, by experiment, the different actions and relations 
of the material things around us, and we find them bound 
together by a law of mutual attraction. Following our master 
of philosophy in the loftiest generalization recorded in the 
history of mankind, we attribute this property, found in the 
matter on the surface of our planet, to every other mass of 
matter within the limits of the visible universe. We bring our 
o;eneralization to the test of observations of a new and certain 
kind, and we find that it is true. We find that no parts of the 
visible universe are insulated from the rest ; but that all are 



13 



knit together by the operation of a common law. We follow 
this law into its remotest consequences, and we find it termi- 
nating in beauty, and harmony, and order*. 

Ao-ain, if we commence our examination of the natural 
world with the small portions of matter which surround us, 
and following our induction in a new direction, resolve them 
into their elements, and unravel the laws of their combination; 
we see at every step new cause for wonder, new objects for 
admiration. Every portion of the matter we tread beneath 
our feet (however insignificant as an object of sense) propagates 
its influence through all space, and is felt in the remotest 
regions of the universe. However small the particle of dust 
we trample on, it may present traces of a mechanism sub- 
servient to the complicated functions of a living being; or it 
may be a compound inorganic body, possessing properties of 
indefinite complexity : and though it be what we call a simple 
substance, still it is held together by its own laws of cohesion ; 
it is composed of elements not brought together fortuitously, 
but in obedience to a fixed law, by which they are congregated 
in definite proportions, and grouped in symmetry and order. 
Not only is every portion of matter governed by its own 
laws, but its powers of action on other material things are 
governed also by laws subordinate to those by which its parts 
are held together. So that in the countless changes of material 
things and their countless actions on each other, we find no 
effect which jars with the mechanism of nature ; but all are 
the harmonious results of dominant laws. 

Again, if we pass from the consideration of things visible 
and tangible to the subtile and imponderable agents of the 
material world, we not only witness the manifestation of their 
powers in every physical change and every combination, but 
we know that some of them, and we may perhaps suppose that 
all of them, are diffused uninterruptedly through every portion 

* See note ( A ) at the end. 



14 



of the universe. We are certain that the material of liffht is 
at least as far extended as the force of gravitation. It places 
us at once in physical contact with the remotest bodies of our 
created system, and by its vibrations they become manifest to 
us through our visual sense. There is, therefore, no portion 
of space, however small or however distant, which is not filled 
at all times with subtile matter — which does not every moment 
transmit material influences, in number complexity and rapidity 
beyond the grasp of thought, yet never anomalovis or fortuitous, 
but governed by fixed laws, and subservient to ends most 
important in the economy of nature, and essential to the very 
existence of sentient beings. 

In speaking of the laws of nature and of the harmonious 
changes resulting from their action, in spite of ourselves we 
fall into language in which we describe the operations of intel- 
ligence : and language, let me observe, was never formed by a 
convention of learned men, or constructed on the scheme of an 
hypothesis. It is the true offspring of our intellectual nature, 
and bears the image of such ideas as rise up of necessity in the 
mind, from our relation to the things around us. If we forget 
him in our thoughts, with our lips at least we must do homage 
to the God of nature. What are the laws of nature but the 
manifestations of his wisdom ? What are material actions but 
manifestations of his power.'' Indications of his wisdom and 
his power co-exist with every portion of the universe. They 
are seen in the great luminaries of heaven — they are seen in 
the dead matter whereon 'we trample — they are found in all 
parts of space, remote as well as near, which we in our 
ignorance sometimes regard as mere vacuities — they are un- 
ceasing — they are unchangeable*. 

Contemplations such as these lift the soul to a perception 
of some of the attributes of God ; imperfect it may be, but 
still suited to the condition of our being. But are thoughts 

* See note ( B) at the end. 



15 

like these to pass through the mind and produce only a cold 
acquiescence ? Are we to dwell in the perpetual presence 
of God and yet dishonour him by the worship of ourselves, 
and refuse to him the homage of our humble praise ? Such 
were not the feelings of the holy Psalmist, when, contrasting 
his own feebleness with the all-pervading wisdom and power 
of God, he was kindled as by fire from heaven, and burst 
out into rapturous expressions of adoration. Whither shall 
I go from thy spirit f or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? 
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there : if I make my bed 
in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the 
morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea ; Even 
there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold 
me. If I say. Surely the darkness shall cover me ; even the 
night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not 
from thee: but the night shineth as the day: the darkness 
and the light are both alike to thee'^. 

How any believer can deny the reality of a natural religion 
when he reads those passages in the Bible where its power is so 
emphatically acknowledged, is more than I can understand. 
We are told by St. Paul, that even the Gentiles are without 
excuse, for the invisible things of God from the creation of the 
world are clearly seen, being understood by the things which 
are made, even his eternal power and Godhead^. Yet I 
have myself heard it asserted within these very walls, that 
there is no religion of nature, and that we have no knowledge 
of the attributes of God or even of his existence, independently 
of revelation. The assertion is, I think, mischievous, because 
I believe it untrue : and by truth only can a God of truth be 
honoured, and the cause of true religion be served. 

But there is another class of objectors, who not only adopt 
this cold and unnatural conclusion, but rejecting revelation 
along with it, banish utterly all thought of God from the 

* Psalm cxxxix. 7—12. t Rom. i. 23. 



16 

world. It is indeed true, as these objectors state, that all 
material changes are governed by fixed laws, and that the 
present condition of all material things is but a natural con- 
sequence of these laws operating on that condition of matter 
which preceded the phenomena we contemplate. They rest 
their strength, as far as I understand their meaning, in this 
immutability of the laws of nature : and having, with much 
labour, decyphered a portion of these laws, and having traced 
the ordained movements of the material world without ever 
thinking of the Being by whom these movements were di- 
rected, they come at length to deify the elements themselves, 
and to thrust the God of nature from his throne. But where 
is the reasonableness of this conclusion ? The unchangeable- 
ness of the laws of nature is not only essential to the well being, 
but to the very existence of creatures like ourselves. The 
Avorks of our hands are liable to perpetual change, from ca- 
price, from violence, or from natural decay : but in the 
material laws ordained by God, there are no such indications, 
because they partake of the perfections of his attributes, and 
are therefore unchangeable. 

The single-minded writers of the New Testament, having 
their souls filled with other truths, thought little of the laws 
of nature : but they tell us of the immutable perfections of 
our heavenly Father, and describe him as a being in whom 
is no iiariableness or shadow of turning. The religion of 
nature and the religion of the Bible are therefore in beautiful 
accordance; and the indications of the Godhead, offered by 
the one, are well fitted to give us a livelier belief in the 
promises of the other. So far from offering any foundation for 
an atheistical argument, the constancy of the laws of nature, 
might, I think, have been almost anticipated by a well ordered 
mind, though unacquainted with the great discoveries of physics: 
and should the framer of the universe have other changes in 
reserve for the material world beyond those that follow from 



17 

the laws by which he has already in part revealed himself to 
us, we have no right to suppose that such changes can be 
known or understood by beings like ourselves — so feeble in 
capacity — so limited in time — and confined to such a speck 
of the universe. 

But after all, we do contemplate something more than 
a mere succession of material changes. We find that these 
changes are limited by an adjusting power, and tend to a 
condition of equilibrium, and that the ultimate results of 
the laws of nature are harmony and order. We find them 
operating in different portions of space with endless complexity, 
and yet producing effects perfectly adapted to each other. 
We see innumerable portions of matter not only obeying 
laws common to all matter, but acted on by new laws sub- 
servient to vital powers ; and by these laws gradually moulded 
into a beautiful form and mechanism — suited at once to all 
the complicated functions of a sentient being, and to all the 
material elements which surround it. Are we to believe that 
there can be such beautiful and harmonious movements in 
the vast mechanism of nature, and yet think that the Spirit 
of God hath not brooded over them, and that his hand 
hath not guided them.? Can we see in every portion of the 
visible world the impress of wisdom and power, and yet 
believe that these things were not foreseen in the Divine 
mind, and these ends not contemplated before he called the 
universe into being ? 

The external world proves to us the being of a God in 
two ways ; by addressing the imagination, and by informing 
the reason. It speaks to our imaginative and poetic feelings, 
and they are as much a part of ourselves as our limbs and 
our organs of sense. Music has no charms for the deaf, 
nor has painting for the blind ; and all the touching sentiments 
and splendid imagery borrowed by the poet from the world 
without, would lose their magic power, and might as well 

B 



18 

be presented to a cold statue as to man, were there no pre- 
ordained harmony between his mind and the material things 
around him. It is certain that the glories of the external 
world are so fitted to our imaginative powers as to give them 
a perception of the Godhead, and a glimpse of his attributes ; 
and this adaptation is a proof of the existence of God, of 
the same kind (but of greater or less power according to 
the constitution of our individual minds) with that we derive 
from the adaptation of our senses to the constitution of the 
material world. 

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament 
sheweth his handy work*. Here is a direct assertion — 
an appeal to the heart and not to the understanding; and 
every unsophisticated heart will beat in unison with it. 
The fool hath said in his heart there is no God : corrupt 
are they and have done abominable iniquity f. In this 
passage the denial of God is coupled in the mind of the 
sacred poet with foul and sensual sin. And is not such an 
union justified by experience.'^ A soul corroded by sensual 
sin can ill reflect the pure image of God — can ill discern 
the indications of his will in the glories of his creation. 

Leaving, however, the proofs of an intelligent cause from 
the connexion between the external world and our imaginative 
powers, let us once more glance our eye over the proofs 
which appeal to the reasoning faculties. The mind becomes 
bewildered among the countless movements continually going 
on, and the perpetual changes produced by material actions, 
of which we see neither the beginnins; nor the end: but we 
find repose in the study of animated nature. Every being 
possessing life may first be considered apart from the rest of 
nature. Its bodily organs are produced by powers of vast 
complexity and understood only in their effects — confined in 
their operation to the individual being, and entirely separate 

* Psalm xix. 1. t Psalm liii. 1. 



19 

from the ordinary modes of atomic action. Yet these organs 
thus elaborated, exhibit throughout a perfect mechanism, in 
all its parts (as far as we can comprehend them) exactly fitted 
to the vital functions of the being. Contrivance proves design : 
in every organic being we survey (and how countless are the 
forms and functions of such beings !) we see a new instance of 
contrivance and a new manifestation of an intelligent super- 
intending power. 

This proof is so strong that it never has been and never 
can be gainsaid. It is in vain that we attempt to shut out the 
belief in an intelligent Creator by referring all phenomena to a 
connected succession of material causes, not one of which is 
fully comprehended. This thought should indeed fill us with 
deep humility, but takes not from us the fair inductions of our 
reason. We do not understand that complicated material 
action by which the God of nature builds up the organic struc- 
ture of a sentient being : but we do, in part at least, compre- 
hend the adaptation of its mechanism to various ends, and we 
see those ends accomplished: and this is enough to warrant our 
conclusion. 

An uninstructed man sees a piece of mechanism, and from 
the form and the acting of its external parts (though he compre- 
hend neither its whole structure not its objects) is certain that 
it is the work of a skilful hand. Another man understands all 
its complicated movements, but knows not the nature of the 
moving power in which they originate. A third can explain 
the alternate expansions and condensations of an elastic vapour 
and point out this action as the origin and support of the whole 
propelling force. At length we find one, who will not only 
explain the whole mechanism from first to last ; but tell us 
of the nature of its materials, of the places whence they were 
derived, of the modes of their fabrication, of the manner in 
which they were put together, and of all the effects of their 
combined action. But it is not necessary to know all this to 

B 2 



20 

be certain of an intelligent contriver. The first observer drew 
this conclusion rightly from what he saw, though he compre- 
hended little of these complicated movements. And after all, 
what relation does the most skilful mechanist bear to his own 
workmanship ? He does not create one particle of matter — he 
does not supersede one law of nature : but using the matter 
created to his hands, and forming and combining it in subor- 
dination to the laws impressed on it, he produces a connected 
succession of material actions, and obtains a series of results — 
foreseen in his own mind and determined in his will before he 
commenced the building of his fabric. 

Something like this we can trace in the development of 
organic beings. They are formed of matter, which was created, 
and governed by its own laws, anterior to their existence : they 
are matured by a regulated succession of material actions: when 
perfected, they exhibit an exquisite combination of mechanical 
contrivances, and organs fitted to carry them into effect. To 
such a structure are superadded vital functions and appe- 
tencies, which (like the moving force of a complicated engine) 
put all its parts into motion, and compel them to obey the 
laws of their destination. The external forms of organic bodies 
we can study, their functions we can observe, their internal 
mechanism we can partly trace: but when we consider the 
vital powers connected with their origin and development, 
we find ourselves among phenomena out of the ken of our 
senses, and removed beyond our intellectual grasp ; and are 
compelled to acknowledge our utter ignorance. But, on this 
account to exclude an intelligent contriver, would not be more 
wise, than for a man to assert the fortuitous concourse of the 
wheels of a machine, because he knew not the power by which 
it was set in motion. 

It is in vain that we attempt to banish an intelligent 
Creator, by referring all changes organic and inorganic, to a 
succession of constant material actions, continued during an 



21 

eternity of past time. Were this true, it would not touch 
our argument : and every clear instance of organic contrivance 
or material adaptation, would be a phenomenon unexplained, 
except on the supposition of a contriver. It would only prove 
that, in a certain portion of space, God had thought fit to give 
a constant manifestation of his wisdom and power through an 
indefinite period of duration. The eternity of material forms 
is, however, but a dream of vain philosophy, unfounded in 
reason or analogy ; and, as far at least as organic nature is 
concerned, contradicted by the plainest physical records of the 
past world. 

Assuming, then, that the structure of every being, endowed 
with life, demonstrates the existence of an intelligent overruling 
power, to what more does the conclusion lead us ? — To the 
inevitable belief that all inanimate nature is also the production 
of the same overruling intelligence. As all parts of matter are 
bound together by fixed and immutable laws ; so all parts of 
organic nature are bound to the rest of the universe, by the 
relations of their organs to the world without them. If the 
beautiful structure of organic bodies prove design, still more 
impressive is the proof, when we mark the adaptation of their 
organs to the condition of the material world. By this adapta- 
tion, we link together all nature, animate and inanimate, and 
prove it to be one harmonious whole, produced by one dominant 
intelligence. 

The organs of sense and the materials around them are 
related to each other in the way of adaptation, but not in 
the way of cause and effect. The eye is not formed by the 
vibrations of light, nor the ear by the pulsations of the air. 
Had this been the case, such beings as the blind and the 
deaf would never have been heard of; for no being can be 
removed from the influence of those elements. The eye and 
the ear are formed in the womb by the mysterious operations 
of organic secretion and assimilation, before the pulsations 



22 

of the air have ever reached the ear, or the vibrations of 
light have ever acted on the visual sense. They are examples 
of beautiful mechanism demonstrating design ; but they are 
adapted only to a future condition of the being ; and so also 
demonstrate a provident intelligence. Should any one deny 
conclusions such as these, I can only reply that his mind 
is differently constituted from my own, and that we have 
no common ground on which to build a reasonable argument. 

By the discoveries of a new science (the very name of 
which has been but a few years engrafted on our language), 
we learn that the manifestations of God's power on the earth 
have not been limited to the few thousand years of man's 
existence. The Geologist tells us, by the clearest interpretation 
of the phenomena which his labours have brought to light, that 
our globe has been subject to vast physical revolutions. He 
counts his time not by celestial cycles, but by an index he 
has found in the solid framework of the globe itself. He sees 
a long succession of monuments each of which may have re- 
quired a thousand ages for its elaboration. He arranges them 
in chronological order ; observes on them the marks of skill 
and wisdom, and finds within them the tombs of the ancient 
inhabitants of the earth. He finds strange and unlooked-for 
changes in the forms and fashions of organic life during each 
of the long periods he thus contemplates. He traces these 
changes backwards through each successive era, till he reaches 
a time when the monuments lose all symmetry, and the types of 
organic life are no longer seen. He has then entered on the 
dark age of nature's history ; and he closes the old chapter 

of her records This account has so much of what is exactly 

true, that it hardly deserves the name of figurative descrip- 
tion. 

Geology, like every other science when well interpreted, 
lends its aid to natural religion. It tells us, out of its own 
records, that man has been but a few years a dweller on the 



23 

earth ; for the traces of himself and of his works are confined 
to the last monuments of its history. Independently of every 
written testimony, we therefore believe that man, with all his 
powers and appetencies, his marvellous structure and his fitness 
for the world around him, was called into being within a few 
thousand years of the days in which we live — not by a trans- 
mutation of species, (a theory no better than a phrensied 
dream), but by a provident contriving power. And thus 
we at once remove a stumbling block, thrown in our way 
by those who would rid themselves of a prescient first cause, 
by trying to resolve all phenomena into a succession of 
material actions, ascending into an eternity of past time. 

But this is not the only way in which Geology gives 
its aid to natural religion. It proves that a pervading intelli- 
gent principle has manifested its power during times long 
anterior to the records of our existence. It adds to the great 
cumulative argument derived from the forms of animated 
nature, by shewing us new and unlooked-for instances of or- 
ganic structure adjusted to an end, and that end accomplished. 
It tells us that God has not created the world and left it 
to itself, remaining ever after a quiescent spectator of his own 
work : for it puts before our eyes the certain proofs, that during 
successive periods there have been, not only great changes in 
the external conditions of the earth, but corresponding changes 
in organic life ; and that in every such instance of change, the 
new organs, as far as we can comprehend their use, were exactly 
suited to the functions of the beings they were given to. It 
shews intelligent power not only contriving means adapted to 
an end: but at many successive times contriving a change of 
mechanism adapted to a change of external conditions; and 
thus affords a proof, peculiarly its own, that the great first 
cause continues a provident and active intelligence. 

I forbear to dwell on other questions deeply connected 
with this science — Proofs of a higher temperature, as shewn 



24 

by the organic forms of the old Avorld — indications of the same 
thing, in the crystalline structure of the lower strata, and the 
masses on which they rest — and further proofs derived from 
the figure of the earth itself. The spheroidal form of the 
earth seems to have preceded all geological phenomena, and 
makes probable the condition of primeval fusion : and, follow- 
ing in the same train of thought, we have only to imagine 
another accession of heat, and the whole earth must have been 
dissipated through planetary space, and have appeared (were 
there then an eye like our own to behold it) as a mere ex- 
panded nebulosity. 

Speculations like these, starting at least from actual phe- 
nomena, are not without their use. For, without lowering one 
jot the proof of a preordaining intelligence, they point, through 
a long succession of material changes, towards a beginning of 
things, when there was not one material quality fitted to act 
on senses like our own ; and thus they take from nature that 
aspect of unchangeableness and stern necessity which has driven 
some men to downright atheism, and others to reject all 
natural religion. 

If, then, our planetary system was gradually evolved from 
a primeval condition of matter, we may well believe, that every 
material change within it, from first to last, has been but a 
manifestation of the Godhead, and an emanation from his im- 
mediate will — Or we may suppose, that new powers have, by 
an act of creative interference, been impressed on it at 
successive epochs of its changes; and that these new powers, 
working together with the old, may have brought about the 
next system of material conditions* — Or, if it be thought 
more in conformity with what we see of the modes of material 
action, to suppose that the primeval system contained within itself 

* This second hypothesis (though perhaps less philosophical than either of the 
other two) is suggested by the analogy of the repeated changes of organic species, 
alluded to above, each of which can be regarded only as a positive creative 
interference. 



25 

the elements of every subsequent change, then is the primeval 
matter to the matured system of the world, as the seed to the 
plant, or the egg to the living creature. Following for a mo- 
ment the last of these hypotheses — shall this embryo of the 
material world contain within itself the germ of all the beauty 
and harmony, the stupendous movements and exquisite adap- 
tations of our system — the entanglement of phenomena, held 
together by complicated laws, but mutually adjusted so as to 
work together to a common end — and the relation of all these 
things to the functions of beings possessing countless super- 
added powers, bound up with life and volition ? And shall we 
then satisfy ourselves, by telling of laws of atomic action, of 
■mechanical movements, and chemical combinations; and dare 
to think, that in so doing, we have made one step towards an 
explanation of the workmanship of the God of nature? So 
far from ridding ourselves, by our hypothesis, of the necessity 
of an intelligent first cause, we give that necessity a new 
concentration, by making every material power, manifested 
since the creation of matter, to have emanated from God's 
bosom by a single act of omnipotent prescience. 

Leaving, however, these subjects of lofty speculation, and 
retracing our steps from the first condition of created matter 
towards the order of things now going on before us, we see 
from the form and structure of the solid masses on the surface 
of the earth, that many parts of it have been elaborated during 
successive periods of time ; and if we cannot point out the first 
traces of organic life, we can find, at least, an indication of its 
beginning. During the evolution of countless succeeding ages, 
mechanical and chemical laws seem to have undergone no 
change ; but tribes of sentient beings were created, and lived 
their time upon the earth. At succeeding epochs, new tribes of 
beings were called into existence, not merely as the progeny of 
those that had appeared before them, but as new and living 
proofs of creative interference : and though formed on the 



26 

same plan, and bearing the same marks of wise contrivance, 
oftentimes as unlike those creatures which preceded them, as 
if they had been matured in a different portion of the universe 
and cast upon the earth by the collision of another planet. At 
length, within a few thousand years of the days in which we live 
(a period short indeed if measured by the physical monuments 
of time past), man and his fellow beings are placed upon the 
earth. Of the whole creation, he alone has an appetence for ab- 
stract truth — he alone sees material powers, and by the capacity 
of his mind, grasps at them not as accidents, but phenomena 
under some ruling law — and, in describing them, he uses 
language (and what is language but the connected natural 
signs of internal thoughts ?) in which, in spite of himself, he 
describes the operations of intelligence and power. He turns 
these laws to his own account ; by his own volition works 
upon them, and produces consequences important to himself 
and foreseen in his own mind : and thus he learns, from what 
he has done himself, and from the constitution of his intel- 
lectual nature, to see in all things around him contrivance and 
causation. All nature is but the manifestation of a supreme 
intelligence, and to no being but him, to whom is given the 
faculty of reason, can this truth be known. By this faculty he 
becomes the lord of created beings, and finds all matter, or- 
ganic and inorganic, subservient to his happiness, and working 
together for his good. A part of what is past he can com- 
prehend ; something even of the future he can anticipate ; and 
on whatever side he looks, he sees proofs, not of wisdom and 
power only, but of goodness. 

But these abstract powers form not the whole immaterial 
part of man. He has moral powers and capacities unsatisfied 
with what he sees around him. He longs for a higher and 
more enduring intellectual fruition — a nearer approach to the 
God of nature : and seeing that every material organ, as well 
as every vital function and capacity in things around him 



27 

is created for an end, he cannot believe that a God of power 
and goodness will deceive him ; and on these attributes he 
builds his hopes of continued being, and future glory. 

This is the true end to which the religion of nature points. 
Her light may be but dim, and beyond the point to which she 
leads us there may be a way which the vulture's eye hath not 
seen, the lioti's whelp hath not trodden, nor the fierce lion 
passed — a cold and dismal region, where our eyes behold 
none but the appalling forms of nature's dissolution : but here 
our heavenly Father deserts us not; he lights a new lamp for 
our feet, and places a staff in our hands, on which we may lean 
securely through the valley of the shadow of death, and reach 
and dwell in a land where death and darkness have heard the 
doom of everlasting banishment. 

In ending this portion of my discourse, let me exhort 
you not only to mingle thoughts like these with your abstract 
studies, but to give them an habitual personal application — 
to seek above all things a spirit of single-mindedness and 
humility — to believe yourselves in the perpetual presence of 
God — to adore him in the glories of his creation — to see 
his power and wisdom in the harmony of the world — his 
goodness and his providence in the wonderful structure of 
living beings — Not merely to admit these things as general 
truths, but to make yourselves familiar with them by fre- 
quent trains of reasoning founded on such examples as are 
continually before you*. 

To deny all natural religion is not more strange than to 
commence a system of moral philosophy by denying the 
existence of moral feelings. It is, I think, to deny that very 
constitution of our minds on which the fabric of our religious 
character must be built. How such a character is, matured 
and upheld I do not now inquire : but among persons of in- 
tellectual habits, it depends for its commencement, mainly on 

Ste note (C) at the end. 



28 

the conduct of the mind in early life : and during the changes 
of advancing years cannot perhaps be so well upheld by any 
ordinary means as by a steady habit of seeing, and adoring 
with thankfulness of heart, the wisdom and goodness of God 
in the wonders and bounties of his creation. The materials 
for thoughts like these are placed abundantly around us. 

To many minds, the forms of natural knowledge presented 
in the abstractions of severe science, are cold and uninviting : 
but if we follow them with the light of other kindred studies, 
such as those I have endeavoured faintly to shadow out, 
we bring down the fire from heaven which at once gives them 
movement and animation. 

II. In the comments I think it right to make on 
the second branch of our studies, I may take for granted 
that every one of those whom I now address, has from his 
tender years been taught the languages of Greece and Rome, 
and is familiar with at least a portion of their literature. 
It is no part of my object either to praise or blame the 
system of early education in this country : but, before I pass 
on, I may recall to your minds the wonderful ease with which 
a child comprehends the conventional signs of thought formed 
between man and man — not only learns the meaning of words 
descriptive of visible things ; but understands, by a kind of 
rational instinct, the meaning of abstract terms, without ever 
thinking of the faculty by which he comes to separate them from 
the names of mere objects of sense. The readiness with which 
a child acquires a language may well be called a rational 
instinct: for during the time that his knowledge is built up, 
and that he learns to handle tlie implements of thought, he 
knows no more of what passes within himself, than he does 
of the structure of the eye, or of the properties of light, while 
he attends to the impressions on his visual sense, and gives 
to each impression its appropriate name. As the memory 



29 

becomes stored with words, and the mind accustomed to their 
application, this readiness of verbal acquisition gradually 
decays, and at length, with some persons, almost disappears. 
That this is true, I need only appeal to the experience of 
those who, after being long disused to such studies, have 
attempted to learn a language. They will tell you of their 
feelings of mental drudgery and intolerable fatigue, during their 
slow, laborious progress, in acquiring what a child gains 
without knowing how, and a young person learns cheerfully 
and without a sense of toil. A small part of these remarks 
applies only to our vernacular tongue and to oral teaching : 
the greater part bears on the acquisition of all languages — 
the dead as well as the living. Our fathers then have done 
wisely, and followed nature, in making the study of languages 
a part of our earliest discipline. By this study we gain 
access to the magazines of thought — we find our way through 
the vast storehouses wherein are piled the intellectual treasures 
of a nation, as soon as we have capacity to understand their 
value, and strength to turn them to good account. 

With individuals as with nations, the powers of imagina- 
tion reach their maturity sooner than the powers of reason ; 
and this is another proof, that the severer investigations of 
science ought to be preceded by the study of languages ; and 
especially of those great works of imagination which have become 
a pattern for the literature of every civilized tongue. From time 
to time there arise up on the earth men who seem formed 
to become the center of an intellectual system of their own. 
They are invested, like the prophet of old, with a heavenly 
mantle, and speak with the voice of inspiration. Those that 
appear after them are but attendants in their train — seem 
born only to revolve about them, warmed by their heat 
and shining by their reflected glory. Their works derive not 
their strength from momentary passions or local interests, 
but speak to feelings common to mankind, and reach the inner- 



30 

most movements of the soul; and hence it is that they have 
an immortal spirit which carries them safe through the wreck 
of empires and the changes of opinion. 

Works like these are formed by no rule ; but become 
a model and a rule to other men. Few, however, among 
us are permitted to shew this high excellence. Ordinary 
minds must be content to learn by rule; and every good 
system of teaching must have reference to the many and not 
to the few. But surely it is our glorious privilege to follow 
the track of those who have adorned the history of mankind — 
to feel as they have felt — to think as they have thought — and 
to draw from the living fountain of their genius. Wonderful 
and mysterious is the intellectual communion Ave hold with 
them ! Visions of imagination starting from their souls, as 
if struck out by creative power, are turned into words, and 
fixed in the glowing forms of language : and, after a time, the 
outward signs of thought pass before our sense; and, by 
a law of our being not under our control, kindle within us 
the very fire which (it may be thousands of years ago) 
warmed the bosom of the orator or the poet — so that once 
ao-ain, for a moment, he seems in word and feeling, to have a 
living presence within ourselves ! 

As the body gains strength and grace by the appropriate 
exercise of all its members ; so, also, the mind is fortified and 
adorned by calling every faculty into its proper movement. 
No one will indeed deny, that the imaginative powers are 
strengthened and the taste improved, especially in young 
minds, by the habitual study of models of high excellence. 
It may, however, at first sight well admit of question, when 
we consider the shortness of life and the multitude of things 
demanding our effbrts and pressing on our attention, whether 
a study of the dead languages ought to form a prominent part 
of academic discipline. Had Europe, after the darker ages, 
advanced to civilization without the aid of ancient learning, 



31 



this question might not have been so readily answered in 
the affirmative. But, without troubling ourselves with imagi- 
nary difficulties, we may reply — that the best literature of 
modern Europe, is drawn more or less from the classic source, 
and cast in the classic mould; and can neither be felt nor 
valued as it ought without ascending to the fountain head — 
that our superstructure must suffer if we allow its foundations 
to decay — If this answer be not thought sufficient, there is 
another which admits of no reply, and the force of which 
no time can take away. Our classical studies help us to 
interpret the oracles of God, and enable us to read the book 
wherein man's moral destinies are written, and the means 
of eternal life are placed before him. 

Assuming then that our fathers have done well in making 
classical studies an early and prominent part of liberal educa- 
tion ; there still remains a question whether they are wisely 
followed up in the system of our University. Those who 
are best acquainted with our studies will confess with what 
delight they have witnessed the extent and accuracy of erudi- 
tion displayed, of late years, by many of our younger members. 
Whatever is taught in this place ought to be taught pro- 
foundly : for superficial information is not merely of little 
value, but is a sure proof of bad training. Hence, that critical 
skill which teaches men to dissect the ancient languages — to 
unravel all the subtilties of their structure — and to transfuse 
their whole meaning into a translation, well deserves the honors 
and rewards we have long bestowed upon it. 

In the department of verbal criticism some of the mighty 
men whose names adorn our domestic history (and whose 
remembrance we keep alive by this day's ceremonial), have 
earned a lasting fame ; and have proved how in their hands, 
that knowledge, which with vulgar minds is trifling and without 
fruit, can be made to assist in the illumination of history, 
the detection of sophistry, and the support of sacred truth. 



32 

Few persons are, however, gifted with the powers of a Bentley 
or a Porson : and were we permitted, on a day like this, 
to allude to the imperfections of such men, we might perhaps 
lament, that so little even of their time was employed on 
matter worthy of the giant strength that God had given 
them. 

I think it incontestably true, that for the last fifty years 
our classical studies (with much to demand our undivided 
praise) have been too critical and formal; and that we have 
sometimes been taught, while straining after an accuracy 
beyond our reach, to value the husk more than the fruit 
of ancient learning : and if of late years our younger members 
have sometimes written prose Greek almost with the purity of 
Xenophon, or composed iambics in the finished diction of the 
Attic poets, we may well doubt whether time suffices for such 
perfection — whether the imagination and the taste might not 
be more wisely cultivated than by a long sacrifice to what, 
after all, ends but in verbal imitations — In short, whether 
such acquisitions, however beautiful in themselves, are not 
gained at the expense of something better. This at least 
is true, that he who forgets that language is but the sign 
and vehicle of thought, and while studying the word, knows 
little of the sentiment — who learns the measure, the garb, 
and fashion of ancient song, without looking to its living soul 
or feeling its inspiration — is not one jot better than a traveller 
in classic land, who sees its crumbling temples, and numbers, 
with arithmetical precision, their steps and pillars, but thinks 
not of their beauty, their design, or the living sculptures on 
their walls — or who counts the stones in the Appian way 
instead of gazing on the monuments of the " eternal city." 

There is one province of verbal criticism which has often 
been overlooked, or set at naught, and yet would abundantly 
repay the labour of its cultivation. Words are the signs of 
thought ; and from words themselves (without following them 



33 

through all their inflexions and combinations in the finished 
structure of a language), we may see into the natural feelings 
and judgments of men, before they become warped by the 
prejudices of sect or the subtilties of system. If in reading 
the ancient writers, we meet with words describing virtue 
and vice, honour and dishonour, guilt and shame, coupled 
with the strongest epithets of praise or condemnation ; then we 
are certain that these things existed as realities before they 
became words; or at least, that in the minds of those who, 
during the early progress of society, built up the ancient 
languages, they were considered as realities ; and on that 
account (and that account only) had their representatives 
among the symbols of thought. I believe we might in this 
way make a near approach to a true system of moral philo- 
sophy : and our progress would at every step record a series of 
judgments, not derived from any doubtful train of reasoning, 
but forced on men by the very condition of their existence. 

In following up the manly studies of this place, we 
ought to read the classic page, not merely to kindle delightful 
emotions — to gratify the imagination and the taste — ^but also 
to instruct the understanding ; and to this end the philosophical 
and ethical works of the ancients deserve a much larger portion 
of our time than we have hitherto bestowed on them. It is indeed 
notorious, that during many past years, while verbal criticism 
has been pursued with so much ardour, the works to which I 
now allude (coming home, as they do, to the business of life ; 
and pregnant, as they are, with knowledge well fitted to fortify 
the reasoning powers) have, by the greatest number of us, 
hardly been thought of; and have in no instance been made 
prominent subjects of Academic training. The classical writers 
did not cultivate the imagination only ; but they saw deep 
into the springs of human thought and action : and rightly 
apprehending the capacities of man and their bearing on social 
life, they laid the foundation of their moral systems in the 

C 



34 

principles and feelings of our nature, and built thereon a noble 
superstructure. Should any one object to these ancient systems 
(as Paley and many other writers have done), and tell us that 
they are obscure, indefinite, and without sanction : we might 
reply, that in every question, even of physical science, we 
take but a few steps towards a first cause, before we are arrested 
by a boundary we cannot pass — before we are encompassed 
with a darkness no eye can penetrate : — that in moral questions 
(founded, not on the properties of material agents, which we 
can examine and sift, again and again, by new experiments, 
but on the qualities of rational and responsible beings), still 
narrower is the limitation of our inquiries. To suppose that 
we can reason up to a first cause in moral questions — that we 
can reach some simple principle, whence we may descend with 
logical precision to all the complicated duties of a social being; 
is to misapprehend the nature of our faculties, and utterly 
to mistake the relation we bear both to God and man. Such 
a system may delight us by its clearness, and flatter our pride 
because it appears, at once, to bring all our duties within 
our narrow grasp : but it is clear only because it is shallow ; 
while a better system may seem darker, only because it is 
more profound. 

If it be contended, that in the trying circumstances of 
life the moral systems of the ancients are without sufficient 
motives : we may reply, that in this respect all moral systems 
are alike — that all of them lead to consequences, and point 
to actions, beyond the power of any earthly sanction. When 
we ascend to the highest virtues and capacities of our moral 
nature, and think of the tens of thousands who in every age 
have encountered a voluntary death for the good of their 
kindred men and the glory of their country, or the still more 
exalted heroes who have died as solitary martyrs in the defence 
of some high and holy principle ; we tell of deeds which moral- 
ists and historians of every age have adorned with their praise, 



35 . 

and held up for imitation. But still, however common acts 
like these may have been in the history of mankind, we have 
no right to class them as social duties, grounded in mere moral 
and social feelings ; and in accounting for them, our souls recoil 
from the vulgar sanction of this world's praise. If deeds like 
these be compatible with our nature ; then is there something 
within us, which, however obscured or ill-informed, points to a 
higher destiny : and in asking for motives, we must quit the 
province of morals, and enter on that of religion ; and in its 
hopes, faint and feeble as they may often be, we may not only 
find an answer to our question, but a reason why such high 
feelings and capacities are implanted in us ; leading us, as they 
do, into acts opposed to the strongest instincts of our nature, 
and above the sanction of all ordinary moral rules. 

It is, I think, certain that the study of an ethical system, 
grounded on the moral and social feelings, and exemplified 
by that course of action which in all ages has been honoured 
by the virtuous and the wise, is not only a good practical 
training for the mind (which in the busy commerce of life 
has often more to do with moral than with physical reasoning), 
but prepares it for the acceptance of religious truth. Whether 
this opinion be true or false, it is at least certain, that many 
of the writers of antiquity had correct notions on the subject 
of natural religion. The argument for the being of a God, 
derived from final causes, is as well stated in the conversations 
of Socrates, as in the Natural Theology of Paley. Nor does 
Socrates merely regard God as a powerful first cause, but 
as a provident and benevolent being: and he tells us, that 
as man is the only animal with a soul capable of apprehending 
a God, he is the only being by whom God is worshipped — 
that prayer and sacrifice are our duty — that by such services 
we may learn some of the secrets concealed from men, and 
know, that the Divinity sees every thing, hears every thing, 
is present every where, and cares for all his works. Few 

c2 



36 



however of the heathen Philosophers conceived or uttered sen- 
timents like these; and trained as they were in a superstition 
which deified their bad passions, and sanctioned their vices 
under the impure forms of its religious rites, we need not 
wonder at their limited knowledge of the attributes of God, or 
their feeble hopes of a more exalted state of future being*. 

In speaking of the spirit which ought to guide us in our 
classical studies, we must look also to their lessons of practical 
wisdom. History is to our knowledge of man in his social 
capacity, what physical experiments are to our knowledge 
of the laws of nature : and well it is for that country which 
learns wisdom by the experiments of other nations. In ancient 
history we can not only trace the fortunes of mankind under 
almost every condition of political and social life; but all 
the successive actions we contemplate are at such a distance 
from us, that we can see their true bearings on each other 
undistorted by that mist of prejudice with which every modern 
political question is surrounded. We may see that the higher 
virtues, which are the only secure foundation of a nation''s 
strength, are confined to no time or country ; and although 
sometimes called into their fullest action by a sudden and 
trying circumstance, are in the common course of things 
but the slowly matured fruit of good discipline and good 
government. We may look on states rising out of small 
beginnings, and watch the means by which they gradually 
ascend in the scale of national strength. We may mark the 
giant power of despotism wasting away before a petty combina- 
tion of free men. We may see that liberty is the handmaid of 
genius and virtue — that under her fostering care, feelings 
and sentiments, embodied in national literature, spring up 
and knit men together as one family, and for a time give 
them an almost unconquerable might — and lastly, that 

* See note ( ]) ) at the end. 



37 

the loss of national sentiments and national independence, 
whether commencing in decay from within or violence from 
without, is alike followed by moral and physical desolation. 

We study to little purpose, if while we unroll the history 
of past time we look but at one side of the portraiture of 
our race. If we read in it the maxims of wisdom, we find 
also the annals of crime. If great actions have shewn man's 
high capacities, the sins and follies, by which all history is 
blotted, prove also the feebleness of his purpose. We may 
find in every page the records of selfishness — the desolation 
produced by the jarring interests of faction. We may see 
that the foulest crimes have oftentimes been enacted under the 
fairest forms of government ; and that in all conditions of 
a state (from its beginning to its end) corruption of manners 
is ever incompatible with true liberty. We may trace the 
history of a vast empire, from its first beginnings — find it, 
after many mutations of fortune, rising to great power by 
the exercise of great virtue — and during the lapse of ages, 
see its citizens jealous, even to a crime, of their civil freedom. 
We may then go on, and find the same people becoming willing 
tools in the hands of bad men, and, at length, so utterly corrupt, 
as to rush, with one consent, into the basest servitude : and 
in those evil days, we may find that even the best men were 
willing to surrender their inheritance, and to seek, in the 
despotic authority of one, a refuge against the more intolerable 
licence of the many. We leave however our lesson incomplete 
if we follow not this history to its end, and see that the calm 
of despotism, superinduced on a corruption of manners, is 
followed by a stagnation of all the higher virtues which 
minister to national strength ; and so becomes but the dismal 
presage of dismeinberment and final dissolution. 

In the moral, as in the physical, convulsions of the world, 
the good and the bad are often mingled together in a common 
calamity ; and were we to limit our views to this life only, we 



38 

might see, in the dealings of God with man, much to perplex 
and to confound us. Still it is true, even in this narrow view, 
that there is in the history of past times enough to shew that 
God will in the end vindicate his character as a moral gover- 
nour: for we find, that in all ages virtue and wisdom have 
been the only firm supports of national strength — and that 
as in individual men, where sin rules in the bodily members, 
there is a degrading moral servitude, and a loss of capacity 
for high thought and action — so also that among states and 
empires, depravity of manners has ever been followed by a loss 
of glory and a loss of freedom. Hence we may conclude on 
a large experience, grounded on all history, past or present, 
sacred or profane, that those public men who have sought to 
gain their ends by inflaming the bad passions of the people 
and pandering to their vices, have been traitors to the cause of 
true liberty, and blasphemers against the very God they 
professed to worship. 

Another conclusion, not less general than the former, may 
also be drawn from the universal experience of past history — 
that under no form of government is man to be maintained 
in a condition of personal happiness, and social dignity, without 
the sanction of religion. Finally, as all material laws, and 
all material organs throughout animated nature, are wisely 
fitted together, so that nothing, of which we comprehend the 
use, is created in vain ; and as the moral and intellectual 
powers of man, working together according to the laws of 
his being, make him what he is — teach him to comprehend the 
past and almost to realize the future — and rule over his social 
destiny ; we may surely conclude, as a fair induction of natural 
reason, that this religious nature (so essential to his social 
happiness) was not given to him only to deceive him ; but was 
wisely implanted in him, to guide him in the way of truth, 
and to direct his soul to the highest objects of his creation. 
And thus we reach (though by steps somewhat different) the 



39 

same end to which 1 endeavoured to point the way in the 
former division of this discourse. 

III. I now enter on the third branch of our studies, in 
which we are ourselves considered philosophically, as individuals, 
and as social beings. Under this head are included, as was 
observed before, many subjects of great complexity, requiring 
for their investigation long habits of patient thought — bearing 
directly on the business of life — and in their application deeply 
affecting our moral and intellectual characters. If the short- 
ness of time permits us not, in our Academic system, to enter 
largely on this great province of inquiry, and if some depart- 
ments of it are fitted only for the labours of after life ; we are 
at least bound to give, as far as we are able, a right bias to the 
youthful sentiments on all great questions concerning human 
nature, so that those who begin their moral studies here may 
be enabled to lay a good foundation, whereon, in maturer man- 
hood, they may build in safety. 

Locke's " Essay on the Human Understanding" and 
Paley's " Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy" 
have long formed such prominent subjects of instruction in 
this University, that the remarks I have time to make on 
our metaphysical and ethical studies will be almost confined 
to these two works. 

It is, perhaps, unnecessary for me to inform you, that 
Locke supposed the mind to be first of all " as white paper, 
void of all characters," and that all its subsequent ideas — all 
its materials of reason and knowledge — are derived from two 
sources, sensation and reflexion, Ey ideas from sensation he 
means the natural perceptions we have of external things 
through our senses ; by reflexion he understands the notice 
the mind takes of what passes within itself, " whereby it 
becomes furnished with ideas of its ovv^n operations :" and he 
affirms, " that however great the mass of knowledge lodged 



40 

within the mind, there can be nothing there which did not 
come in by one of these two ways." 

It is incontestably true, that the senses are the first avenues 
of our knowledge, and that through them we become first ac- 
quainted with external things. In describing the modes in 
which the mind is furnished with knowledge through the senses, 
the " Essay on the Human Understanding" is, I think, rather 
to be considered as defective in execution, than faulty in prin- 
ciple. Since its publication, much good service has been done 
in this department of inquiry, by Reid and other writers ; but 
much, if I mistake not, still remains to be done ; and were I to 
speculate on the coming fortunes of the philosophical literature 
of this country, I should look forward to the time when some 
one, learned in physiology, instructed in all the laws of those 
elastic fluids by which we are surrounded and acted on, and 
skilled in the analysis of the inner workings of the mind, shall 
bring his strength to bear on this one subject, and present us 
with a work detailing the whole office of the senses, from 
childhood to manhood — from the dawn of reason, to its full 
maturity. 

In discriminating the ideas we derive from reflexion, and 
pointing out the modes in which the mind is gradually raised 
to its full strength and stature, the " Essay on the Human 
Understanding" is not only defective in execution (sharing the 
common fortune of man's work), but is also, I think, faulty in 
its principles. The account it gives of some of our simplest 
abstract notions is erroneous; parts of the work are doubtful 
and obscure ; and the whole greatly devoid of philosophic 
symmetry and order*. Still there are, in every chapter of it. 



• It is impossible, in a sketch like this, to descend into particulars ; but, without 
alluding to the faults of omission, I may, in justification of what is here stated, point 
out, by the way, that Locke's account of the origin of our idea of time is universally 
considered as wrong — that by a large school of metaphysicians his account of our 
knowledge of space is regarded as not less erroneous — that most men look upon 
his discussions, respecting personal identity and the determination of the will, as either 



41 

the marks of deep thought — of a strong mind, clearing away 
the masses of intellectual rubbish by which his whole subject 
was encumbered — and, above all, of a lofty independent spirit, 
holding allegiance to no authority but that of truth. Hence, 
whatever the coming history of letters may bring to light, I 
cannot imagine the day when the works of Locke, under proper 
limitations, will not form noble subjects for academic study. 

Men seem to differ little in the impressions they first re- 
ceive from their senses ; and perhaps quite as little in the first 
abstractions they are by nature led to form. Yet how widely 
separated is one intellect from another ! From the stones of the 
same quarry one man builds a hovel ; another chisels out the 
breathing image of the human form. It is incontestably true, 
that men are chiefly distinguished from each other by their 
habits of combining the same original elements of thought. 
But, in making these combinations, they are not led on blindly 
and fortuitously, but in obedience to intellectual laws operating 
with greater or less force on every rational being. What would 
be the value of the senses were there no sentient principle 
within ? And where would be the use of teaching: were there 
no inborn capacities in the soul to apprehend and to be acted 
on ? It may be true that we have no innate knowledge ; but 
we have innate intellectual powers : and that they are essen- 
tially the same in all men, differing only in degree, is evident 
from the individual habits, the social sympathies, the civil in- 
stitutions, and the languages of our race ; the common feelings 
that hurry us into action ; the common proofs that gain our 
deliberate assent. 

The distinction between innate ideas and innate capacities 
is almost overlooked in the work of Locke*. To this cause we 



defective or false — and that there is no one who does not regard his dissertation on 
power as crude and obscure. 

* The habit of disregarding the distinction between abstract capacities and their 
particular manifestation?, seems to have led Locke into his strange paradox respecting 



42 

must attribute the greatest mistakes and imperfections of his 
system, and the strange omission of many of the highest facul- 
ties of our nature. Of the imaginative powers he hardly says 
one word, or speaks of them only to condemn them. Yet are 
they so woven into our nature that they mingle themselves 
with almost every word and deed — aid us in the interchange of 
thought — ever give delight, in their exercise, both to savage 
and civilized man — nor can they for a moment be put off, ex- 
cept by an effort of the mind, in the severe abstractions of exact 
science. For a metaphysician to discard these powers from his 
system, is to shut his eyes to the loftiest qualities of the soul, 
and is as unaccountable as it would be for a physiologist to 
overlook the very integuments of our animal frame. 

It is by the imagination, more perhaps than by any 
other faculty of the soul, that man is raised above the condi- 
tion of a beast. Beasts have senses in common with ourselves, 
and often in higher perfection : to a certain extent also they 
possess, I think, the powers of abstraction, though this is 
denied by Locke ; but of the imaginative powers, they offer 
perhaps no single trace. These high attributes of the soul 
confer on it a creative energy — aid it even in its generali- 
zations from pure reason — bring before it vivid images of 
the past and glowing anticipations of the future — teach it 
to link together material and immaterial things, and to mount 
up from earth to heaven. All that is refined in civilized life. 



personal identity. Consciousness (in the sense in whicii he uses the word) is the proof 
of our own identity to ourselves ; and it is through this principle, in our nature, that 
we know that we continue one and the same being, and feel that we are personally 
responsible for our past actions, llemembering or associating the past with the present 
is one of the faculties of a rational being. But the individual mind existed anterior to 
the manifestation of this faculty ; otherwise there is no common connecting principle 
among our thoughts, and no such thing as personal identity. In the chapter on " our 
ideas of substances," he considers a "spiritual substance as the substratum of those 
simple ideas we have from without ;" and he justly discriminates between the soul itself 
and the manifestation of its powers. His distinction is well drawn : but it is, I think, at 
A arianre with his discussion on personal identity. 



all that is lofty in poetry or ennobling in art, flows chiefly 
from this one fountain. 

As a matter of fact men do possess imaginative powers, 
and ever have delighted, and ever will delight in their ex- 
ercise : and to exclude them from a system of psychology is 
to mutilate, and not to analyse, the faculties of the soul. 
They may have been abused ; but what of that ? every 
faculty has been abused and turned to evil. Shall we, then, 
not merely overlook the powers of imagination; but, with 
Locke, regard men who appeal to them in their proofs and 
mingle them in their exhortations, as no better than downright 
cheats ? If this be our conclusion, then must the sublime 
morality of Job — the inspired song of David — the rapturous 
anticipations of deliverance in the prophecies of Isaiah, stamp- 
ed in the loftiest forms of poetic imagery, and falling on the 
ear as if proclaimed by an angel's voice from the gates of 
heaven — and the fervent testimony of thousands of holy men 
in every age declaring and enforcing the oracles of God — 
all and every one of these heart-stirring appeals must fall 
under our cold and senseless condemnation. 

In denouncing the exercise of the imagination as a fraud 
upon the reason, Locke would have done well had he 
been considering mere demonstrative truth ; but I find no 
such limitation to his censure. All reasoning is not mathe- 
matical, nor is all truth demonstrative : and one fault of 
the Essay of Locke is its attempt to extend too far the 
boundaries of demonstration. It would indeed be as absurd 
to apply imaginative language to the demonstrations of pure 
reason, as to apply the language of demonstration to the 
analysis of ideal beauty. Each faculty must have its proper 
place ; but none can be lopped off' without marring the handi- 
work of God. 

If it be demanded what is the office of the imagination ? 
we may reply that its office consists in its appropriate exercise 



44 

conjointly with every other faculty of the soul. In one 
respect, however, its use, as well as its abuse, is so obvious 
as to deserve a formal notice. Men decide not on reason 
only — incline not naturally to the right side, like the scale 
of a balance, by the mere weight of evidence. They act in 
common cases through habit or affection ; and in trying cir- 
cumstances the determination of the will is often more by 
feeling than by reason. Hence the imaginative powers, in 
kindling up the active feelings of the soul, have ever been 
mighty instruments of persuasion, whether for good or for evil. 
When Demosthenes, in pleading before the Athenian multitude, 
swore by the souls of his fellow-countrymen who had periled 
their lives in battle on the field of Marathon — and when 
St Paul, speaking in the presence of King Agrippa, held up 
his hand before the assembled crowd and wished to God 
that every one of them was not only almost but altogether 
as himself excepting his bonds — each spoke from the momen- 
tary fulness of his own feeling — each spoke to the hearts and 
bosoms of those around him ; and put forth a weapon of 
persuasion a thousand times more sharp than ever issued 
from the cold armory of reason. 

Another great fault in the Essay of Locke (involved I 
think in his very system, which looking only to the functions 
of the soul forgets its innate capacities), is its omission of the 
faculties of moral judgment. That such faculties exist, is 
proved by the sense of shame in a child, by the natural feelings 
of manhood, by the language of every country, and the code 
of every nation : and lastly, by the word of God, which speaks 
of conscience not as a word of convention — a mere creation 
of the social system ; but as something implanted in our 
bosoms by the hand of our Maker, to preside there and 
pass judgment on our actions. We read of men convicted in 
their o?vn conscience — living in all good conscience — we are 
told of the law tvritten in the hearts (of the Gentiles), and of 



45 

their conscience also hearing witness — we read of a conscience 
void of offence — of the answer of a good conscience towards 
God — of holding faith and a good conscience — and of a con- 
science seared with a hot iron through long familiarity with 
sin. What meaning have words like these, if we may at our 
own will strip conscience of its sanction, and think of it no 
longer as a heaven-born rule of action ? 

The faculties of moral judgment, combined to a certain 
degree with power of choice and liberty of action, not only 
distinguish us from the lower beings of creation, but consti- 
tute the very essence of our responsibility, both to God and 
man. Their omission, then, is a great blemish in any system 
of psychology. 

Let it not be said that our moral sentiments are super- 
induced by seeing and tracing the consequences of crime. 
The assertion is not true. The early sense of shame comes 
before such trains of thought, and is not, therefore, caused 
by them ; and millions, in all ages of the world, have grown 
up as social beings and moral agents, amenable to the laws 
of God and man, who never traced or thought of tracing 
the consequences of their actions, nor ever referred them to 
any standard of utility. Nor let it be said that the moral 
sense comes of mere teaching — that right and wrong pass 
as mere words, first from the lips of the mother to the child, 
. and then from man to man ; and that we grow up with 
moral judgments gradually ingrafted in us from without, by 
the long-heard lessons of praise and blame, by the experience 
of fitness, or the sanction of the law. I repeat that the state- 
ment is not true — that our moral perceptions shew themselves 
not in any such order as this. The question is one of 
feeling; and the moral feelings are often strongest in very 
early life, before moral rules or legal sanctions have once 
been thought of. Again ; what are we to understand by 
teaching ? Teaching implies capacity : one can be of no 



46 

use without the other. A faculty of the soul may be called 
forth, brought to light, and matured ; but cannot be created, 
any more than we can create a new particle of matter, or 
invent a new law of nature. 

Philosophy is not grounded on external authority, but 
in the observed nature of the things we contemplate, whether 
they be material or immaterial. We may invent systems of 
legal ethics drawn from the prudential maxims of society, 
or we may act on a system of Christian ethics founded on 
the positive declarations of the word of God : but without 
an inherent moral capacity, without a moral sense placed in 
the breast of man, by the same hand that made him, the 
science of moral philosophy has not, I think, the shadow 
of any foundation whereon to rest. 

Returning then to the point from which we started; if 
the mind be without innate knowledge, is it also to be con- 
sidered as without innate feelings and capacities — a piece of 
blank paper, the mere passive recipient of impressions from 
without ? The whole history of man shows this hypothesis 
to be an outrage on his moral nature. Naked he comes from 
his mother''s womb ; endowed with limbs and senses indeed, 
well fitted to the material world, yet powerless from want of 
use : and as for knowledge, his soul is one unvaried blank ; 
yet has this blank been already touched by a celestial hand, 
and when plunged in the colours which surround it, it takes 
not its tinge from accident but design, and comes forth covered 
with a glorious pattern. 

If the senses be the first link, connecting the soul with 
the world without, it is equally certain that they are no 
sooner excited, than the affections begin to show themselves; 
not long after, the moral and imaginative powers appear to 
germinate — feebly and interruptedly it may be, yet with 
vigor enough to show that they were rooted in the soul 
by the same hand that formed it. The powers of pure 



47 

reason come later into exercise : and at length, by the joint 
action of all his powers, man becomes what he is — a social, 
a moral and an intellectual being — fitted in all his capacities 
for the material world without, and for the social condition 
in which God has placed him. Some of his faculties may 
be powerless because untried — may have withered for want 
of nourishment ; others by good training may have reached 
their full maturity : but no training (however greatly it may 
change an individual mind) can create a new faculty, any 
more than it can give a new organ of sense. In every branch 
of philosophy the limitations are alike ; we may observe phe- 
nomena and ascend to laws, and, by another movement of the 
mind, ascend to the notion of intelligent causation : but in 
coming down from these laws to their practical application, 
creative power is ever out of question with us, whether we 
have to do with the material or immaterial world ; and every 
change produced by philosophic skill is still subordinate to all 
the phenomena from whicli we first ascended. 

To the supposition of an innate capacity of moral judgment, 
some one may oppose the passions, the vices, and the crimes 
of mankind ; and thence infer, either that man is without 
moral capacity, or that conscience is utterly devoid of sanction. 
We may, however, reply, that under the blind impulse of 
passion men not only take that side which their conscience 
warns them to be wrong, but also in a thousand cases wilfully 
do that, which reason tells them to be against their highest 
interest : and if, after all this, we do not deny the faculty 
of reason, neither ought we to deny the reality of a moral 
sense. In a diseased action of the bodily frame, the organs 
of life may become the implements of death : but no one, 
on that account, discards the inductions of physiology — 
denies that all parts of the frame are skilfully knit together — 
or ceases to believe that every organ has its fitting use. So 
in the immaterial part of man, sin, like a burning fever, may 



48 

make havoc among his highest faculties, and end in moral 
death : but we have no right on that account to regard sin 
as our proper condition, or to affirm that it is not a moral 
pestilence destructive of the supreme law of our moral nature. 
Neither have we any right to say that it blots out the know- 
ledge of good and evil, and overturns the judicial throne of 
conscience. Such a decision is at war with the recorded judg- 
ments of mankind, and strikes at the foundation of all human 
law. Sin may hold our souls in bondage ; but, as long as 
reason lasts, it destroys not our responsibility ; nor is the 
continued perpetration of crime ever tolerated as a plea in 
bar of a penal sentence. 

The objection just considered, does however prove the 
feebleness of moral rule — shows that there is something wrong 
within us, which jars with nature's harmony — that there is 
in the moral government of God much that is beyond the 
grasp of mere philosophy ; and so teaches us to look beyond 
this world, and in the consolations of religion and the hopes 
of a future life to seek a better and a higher sanction ; and 
in the motives of Christian love to find a steadier and more 
abiding principle of holy action, than all the philosophy upon 
earth ever has given or ever can give to man in the hour 
of temptation*. 

With all its faults, the " Essay on the Human Under- 
standing" is a work of great power ; and were any one to need 
a proof of this, he has only to consider the impression it pro- 
duced on the speculations of a former age. Its greatest fault 
is the contracted view it takes of the capacities of man — allow- 
ing him, indeed, the faculty of reflecting and following out 
trains of thought according to the rules of abstract reasoning ; 

* On the subject here alluded to, I would earnestly recommend to the reader's 
perusal an excellent Sermon by Dr Chalmers, entitled "The Expulsive Power of a 
new Affection." Glasgow, 1823. 



49 

but depriving him both of his powers of imagination and of his 
moral sense. Hence it produced, I think, a chilling effect on 
the philosophic writings of the last century : and many a cold 
and beggarly system of psychology was sent into the world by 
authors of the school of Locke ; pretending, at least, to start 
from his principles, and to build on his foundation. It is to 
the entire domination his " Essay" had once established in our 
University that we may, perhaps, attribute all that is faulty 
in the Moral Philosophy of Paley — the work on which I now 
proceed to comment. 

I would ever wish to speak with reverence of a man whose 
name is an honor to our Academic body, and who did, I believe, 
during his time, much more for the cause of revealed truth 
than any other writer of his country. His homely strength 
and clearness of style, and his unrivalled skill in stating and 
following out his argument, must ever make his writings popu- 
lar : and, speaking for myself, I cannot describe, in terms too 
strong, the delight I once experienced in studying his Moral 
Philosophy, where truth after truth seemed to flash on the 
mind with all the force of demonstration — on questions too 
which, in other hands, seemed only involved in mystery and 
doubt. On this account, if there be a defective principle in his 
system, it ought the more boldly to be combated, lest the in- 
fluence of his name and the charm of his philosophic manner, 
lead us only the farther from the truth. 

He commences by denying the sanction and authority of 
the moral sense ; and brings the matter to a point, by putting 
forth an instance, which, like an eocperimentum crucis, is at 
once to be decisive of the question. Having detailed a case of 
cold-blooded parricide, he asks whether " a savage, cut off" in his 
infancy from all intercourse with his species, would, when told 
of this, feel any sentiment of disapprobation." We may reply, 
(as Paley seems to do) that he certainly would not : for neither 
could he possibly comprehend the meaning of the tale ; nor, if 

D 



50 

he did, could he find a word to express his natural abhorrence 
of the crime. If this reply be thought too technical and only 
a shifting of the difficulty, we may meet the case in a different 
way, and combat one ideal instance by another. Suppose a 
solitary being placed from childhood in the recesses of a dun- 
geon and shut out from the light of day, then must he grow 
up without one idea from the sense of sight. But should we 
thence conclude that the sense was wanting ? Let him be 
brought into the light ; and by laws of vision, over which he 
has no control, he will, like other beings, gain knowledge from 
the sense of sight. Let the solitary savage, in like manner, 
come from the recesses of the forest into commerce with his 
fellow beings ; and he will also, by the law of his intellectual 
nature, as inevitably gain a sense of right and wrong ; and he 
will then pass a natural judgment on the crime of parricide, like 
that of any other rational and responsible man. No one now 
speaks of an innate knowledge of morality : an innate moral 
sense or faculty, defining and determining the quality of our 
moral judgments, is all for which we contend ; and Paley's 
instance is quite worthless for his argument. 

Had he grounded his rejection of the moral sense on the 
avowed depravity of our nature, and the impotency of moral 
rule, in putting down the evil that is at war with our better 
feelings, we should, with one mind, have allowed the force of 
his objection ; and some would, I doubt not, have accepted his 
conclusion. In so doing they would however have done wrong: 
for the rejection of the moral sense, on religious grounds, is 
one of the errors of fanaticism. Amidst all the ruin that is 
within us, there are still the elements of what is good ; and 
were there left in the natural heart, no kindly affections and 
moral sentiments, man would be no longer responsible for his 
sins ; and every instance of persuasion against the impulse of 
bad passion, and of conversion from evil unto good, would be 
nothing less than a moral miracle. On such a view of human 



51 

nature, the Apostles of our religion might as well have wasted 
their breath on the stones of the wilderness as on the hearts of 
their fellow-men in the cities of the heathen. 

Had Paley, rejecting the authority of the moral sense on 
grounds like these, proceeded to build up a system of Christian 
ethics, founded on the word of God, enforced by its heavenly 
sanction, and recommended through the affections to a practical 
acceptance as a rule of life, he might have conferred a great 
benefit on the cause of morality and religion. He might then 
have gone on to shew, that the code of Christian morals con- 
tains a set of rules co-ordinate with other rules which the wise 
and the good of all ages have endeavoured to establish and en- 
force (with a fainter light indeed, and under a more feeble 
sanction) as in accordance with the law of our nature, and 
therefore with the will of God : and afterwards he might have 
proved, that the rules of action, derived from these two sources, 
are not only in conformity with each other, but call our highest 
faculties into activity and return into our bosoms incomparably 
the greatest sum of earthly happiness. Thus might he have 
arrived at a perception of an attribute of God, in the only way 
in which it is permitted us, by the mere force of natural reason, 
to reach high points of knowledge — by ascending from particular 
to general truths, from phenomena to laws ; and thus might he 
have concluded, that as in the material world we see in all 
things the proofs of intelligence and power ; so also, that in the 
immaterial world we find proofs, not less strong, that man is 
under the moral government of an all-powerful, benevolent, 
and holy God. Following this train of thought he might, 
lastly, have enunciated a proposition (resembling in its words 
what stands in the front of his moral system, but far different 
in its meaning and incomparably more true), that whatever is 
right is also expedient for man. 

Whatever be the faults of Paley's system, assuredly they 
spring not from fanaticism. After rejecting the moral sense, 

D 2 



r^9. 



but on no such grounds as have been just imagined, he pro- 
ceeds to prove (by reasoning I shall shortly examine) that 
actions are only to be estimated by their general tendency — 
that utility is the touchstone of right and wrong. Here \vc 
have a rule, simple in its enunciation, and flattering to human 
pride : for man no longer appears as the subject of a law, but 
presides with the authority of a judge, and his rule of action is 
the leading interest of himself and his fellow-men. 

In the material world we have no control over the laws of 
nature ; we gain physical knowledge only by studying them ; 
and new physical power only by obeying them : and in questions 
of morality — of right and wrong — we are equally the servants 
of a law, either written in the heart or recorded in the word of 
God. To hesitate is to rebel ; and to wait for the calculations 
of utility, would be, too often, but to seek a cloak of sophistry 
as a shelter for evasion. 

Leaving, however, mere general objections, let us come to 
the system itself, and to the rule of its application. Paley first 
resolves all right into consistency with the will of God : and 
here, at least, is no matter for dispute ; for every moral system 
implies some law or other, which can only emanate from God, 
and to obey that law is plainly to obey his will. But how are 
we to discover that will ? We answer, by studying the moral 
nature of man, and his relation to the things around him — by 
ascending from moral phenomena to moral laws, which thus 
become the manifestations of the will of God, and may be em- 
bodied in the maxims of moral philosophy — or, by humbly 
accepting the revelation of his will, which is religious know- 
ledge. But by whatever means we try to discern the will of 
God — by whatever path we endeavour to ascend towards his 
holy temple — we see but in part and understand in part ; we 
grasp not one of his attributes ; we comprehend not how 
they co-exist within his bosom ; we remain but worshippers 
at the gate ; the veil which conceals him from us cannot be 



S3 

lifted up, nor could our eyes endure the brightness of his 
glory. 

But how little does Paley seem to think of this when he 
reasons of his Maker as if he were a man, and dares to bind up 
the great Jlrst cause in the links of a single disjunctive propo- 
sition. God, as far as regards the interests of man, must be 
benevolent, malignant, or indifferent. This is the fundamental 
proposition of his moral system. But by what right can man 
set limits to the moral condition of the Almighty ? — the creator 
of a million worlds, each bound to the others, by never changing 
laws; and perhaps also of a million intellectual systems, each 
connected with our own by mysterious relations, conceived in 
his mind and preordained in his will, yet not revealed to us. 
In vain we try to comprehend even a single attribute of God ; 
we know him only as he has thought good to reveal himself, 
by the law written in the heart — by the laws of the material 
world — and by the declarations of his word. He may, and 
does, consult his glory in countless ways we know not of. And 
is it not the height of arrogance in any creature like ourselves, 
to limit, even in thought, the workings of his power, and to 
confine the operation of his attributes to such channels only as 
our language can define and our souls can comprehend ? 

In the history of moral reasoning, there is not to be found 
a fundamental proposition more faulty in its principles or more 
dangerous in its application, than the one just considered. Is 
it not notorious, that scoffing men, reasoning on like grounds 
and with like fallacy, have impugned the benevolence of God — 
have profanely dared to entangle the great Jirst cause in 
a dilemma ; pretending to prove, from the misery and deso- 
lation they saw around them, that he either wanted goodness 
or wanted power ? 

If the fundamental reasoning in Paley''s system be unsound, 
its rule is unsuitable to our nature. If expediency be the 
measure of right, and every one claim the liberty of judgment, 



54 

virtue and vice have no longer any fixed relations to the moral 
condition of man, but change with the fluctuations of opinion. 
Not only are his actions tainted by prejudice and passion, but 
his rule of life, under this system, must be tainted in like de- 
gree — must be brought down to his own level : for he will no 
longer be able, compatibly with his principles, to separate the 
rule from its application. No high and unvarying standard of 
morality, which his heart approves, however infirm his practice, 
will be offered to his thoughts. But his bad passions will con- 
tinue to do their work in bending him to the earth ; and, 
unless he be held upright by the strong power of religion (an 
extrinsic power which I am not now considering), he will 
inevitably be carried down, by a degrading standard of action, 
to a sordid and groveling life. 

It may perhaps be said, that we are arguing against a 
rule, only from its misapprehension and abuse. But we reply, 
that every precept is practically bad when its abuse is natural 
and inevitable — that the system of utility brings down virtue 
from a heavenly throne and places her on an earthly tribunal, 
where her decisions, no longer supported by any holy sanction, 
are distorted by judicial ignorance, and tainted by base passion. 
Independently however of the bad effects produced on the 
moral character of man, by a system which makes expediency 
(in whatever sense the word be used) the test of right 
and wrong, we may affirm, on a more general view, that the 
rule itself is utterly unfitted to his capacity. Feeble as man 
may be, he forms a link in a chain of moral causes, ascending 
to the throne of God ; and trifling as his individual acts may 
seem, he tries, in vain, to follow out their consequences as they 
go down into the countless ages of coming time. Viewed in 
this light, every act of man is woven into a moral system, as- 
cending through the past — descending to the future — and pre- 
conceived in the mind of the Almighty. Nor does this notion, 
as far as regards ourselves, end in mere quietism and necessity. 



55 

For we know right from wrong, and have that liberty of action 
which implies responsibility : and, as far as we are allowed to 
look into the ways of Providence, it seems to be compatible 
with his attributes to use the voluntary acts of created beings, 
as second causes in working out the ends of his own will. 
Leaving, however, out of question that stumbling block which 
the prescience of God has often thrown in the way of feeble 
and doubting minds, we are, at least, certain, that man has not 
foreknowledge to trace the consequences of a single action of 
his own ; and, hence, that utility (in the highest sense of 
which the word is capable), is, as a test of right and wrong, 
unfitted to his understanding, and therefore worthless in its 
application. 

By what right, either in reason or revelation, do we assert 
the simple and unconditional benevolence of God; and, on this 
assumption, go on to found a moral system and a rule of life ? 
If he be a God of mercy, is he not also a God of justice ? Sin 
and misery are often among the means of bringing about the 
ends of his providence ; and are so far consistent with his 
government, that they are permitted to last their time upon 
the earth. Nor is this all. The authority of any law may 
be abrogated by the same power that made it : and in the re- 
vealed history of the dealings of God with man ; acts, which 
under ordinary circumstances would be crimes of the darkest 
die, have more than once been made tests of obedience or con- 
ditions of acceptance. Contemplations such as these make the 
unassisted reason shrink within itself through pure despair of 
comprehending the whole moral government of the world. One 
thing, at least, they do prove — how rash and vain a thing it 
is, for a feeble and narrow-sighted being like one of ^s, to 
construct a moral code, on his own interpretation of a single 
attribute of the Godhead. 

A religious man has a happy escape out of all the difficul- 
ties of these dark questions. He feels within himself the 



56 

liberty of choice ; his conscience tells him he is responsible for 
his actions ; the word of God points out a remedy for the evils 
which encompass him : he applies the remedy to himself in 
humble thankfulness, for it meets his wants and is fitted to his 
capacity : and, in the terms of his acceptance into the Christian 
covenant, he finds no condition annexed but the love of God 
and man. 

It may perhaps be said, that the moral system of Paley 
is compatible with the most exalted motives, inasmuch as it 
takes in the whole Christian sanction of a future state ; and no 
man, under any reasonable view of morality and religion, can 
be called on to act in opposition to his eternal interests. Part 
of this observation may be just ; but it gives no colour of 
truth to the moral system here considered, unless it can be 
also shewn, that our future condition, as revealed to us in the 
religion of Christ, depends on our following a rule of life^ 
measured by the standard of utility. But is this true ? I be- 
lieve the contrary ; and that the holmess, without which no 
man shall see the Lord., is as different from a temper governed 
(no matter how consistently) by any worldly rule whatever, 
as light from darkness. 

Christianity considers every act grounded on mere worldly 
consequences as built on a false foundation. The mainspring of 
every virtue is placed by it in the affections, called into renewed 
strength by a feeling of self abasement — by gratitude for an 
immortal benefit — by communion with God — and by the hopes 
of everlasting life. Humility is the foundation of the Christiana's 
honor — distrust of self is the ground of his strength — and 
his religion tells him that every work of man is counted 
worthless in the sight of heaven, as the means of his pardon 
or the price of his redemption. Yet it gives him a pure and 
perfect rule of life ; and does not, for an instant, exempt him 
from the duty of obedience to his rule ; as it ever aims at a pur- 
gation of the moral faculties, and a renewal of the defaced image 



57 

of God : and its moral precepts have an everlasting sanction. 
And thus does Christian love become an efficient and abiding 
principle — not tested by the world, but above the world; yet 
reaching the life-spring of every virtuous deed, and producing 
in its season a harvest of good and noble works incomparably 
more abundant than ever rose from any other soil. 

The utilitarian scheme starts on the contrary with an 
abrogation of the authority of conscience — a rejection of the 
moral feelings as the test of right and wrong. From first 
to last, it is in bondage to the world, measuring every act 
by a worldly standard, and estimating its value by worldly 
consequences. Virtue becomes a question of calculation — 
a matter of profit or loss ; and if man gain heaven at all on 
such a system, it must be by arithmetical details — the com- 
putation of his daily work — the balance of his moral ledger. 
A conclusion such as this offends against the spirit breathing 
in every page of the book of life ; yet is it fairly drawn from 
the principles of utility. It appears indeed not only to have 
been foreseen by Paley, but to have been accepted by him — 
a striking instance of the tenacity with which man ever clings 
to system, and is ready to embrace even its monstrous con- 
sequences rather than believe that he has himself been building 
on a wrong foundation. * 

Utilitarian philosophy and Christian ethics have in their 
principles and motives no common bond of union, and ought 
never to have been linked together in one system : for, palliate 
and disguise the difference as we may, we shall find at last 

* The following are the passages here referred to : 

" The Christian religion hath not ascertained the precise quantity of virtue necessary 
to salvation." 

" It has been said, that it can never be a just economy of Providence to admit one 
part of mankind into heaven, and condemn the other to hell ; since there must be very 
little to choose between the worst man who is received into heaven, and the best who is 
excluded. And how know we, it might be answered, but that there may be as little to 
choose in their conditions'!" Moral Philosophy, Book i. ch. 7. 

In the latter years of his life Paley would, I believe, have been incapable of utteri 
ing or conceiving sentiments such as these. 



58 



that they rest on separate foundations ; one deriving all its 
strength from the moral feelings, and the other from the selfish 
passions of our nature. Religion renounces this unholy 
union ; and the system of utility standing by itself, and 
without the shelter of a heavenly garment not its own, is 
seen in its true colours, and in all the nakedness of its deformity. 

It has indeed been said that all men are governed by 
selfish motives, and that a Christian differs from a worldly 
man only in acting on a better calculated selfish rule. I hope 
that no one whom I am now addressing has been for a moment 
imposed upon by such flimsy sophistry. The motives on 
which man acts are not less varied than the faculties of his 
soul ; and to designate them by one base name (even if done 
honestly) would only prove an utter confusion of thought 
or a helpless poverty of language. 

If we adopt, as some have done, the notion of absolute 
moral necessity, we destroy the very foundation of morality : 
for every moral system, in implying responsibility, implies 
also, at least to a certain degree, the liberty of choice between 
right and wrong. By the long continued commission of sin, 
a man may, however, forfeit the power of self-control — may 
lose the highest prerogative of his nature, the liberty of soul 
and body. In such a condition he is said, in the emphatic 
language of Scripture, to be given up to a reprobate mind — 
to be in the bonds of iniquity. But no one comes from his 
Maker's hands in this condition — he gradually sinks into it 
by a series of voluntary acts for which he has himself to 
blame, and of which he bears within his bosom the accumulated 
evil. 

The determination of the human will has ever been con- 
sidered a dark and difficult subject of inquiry. One cause 
of this may be, that it takes place more by passion and af- 
fection than by reason; and we should be almost justified 
in affirming, that the will is never determined by reason only, 



59 

unless some affection be superadded.* . But this destroys not 
the sanctity of moral rule; for we are clearly as responsible 
for the exercise of our passions and affections as for the other 
faculties of our nature. Whatever may be the clouds first 
raised by the subtilty of man, and still hanging over certain 
moral questions, practically we feel that we are free; and 



* Locke affirms (Essay on the Human Understanding, Book ii. chap. 21.) that 
" the motive for continuing in the same state of action, is only the present satisfaction 
in it: the motive to change, is always some uneasiness:" and consistently with this 
opinion he goes on to state, " that the most pressing uneasiness naturally determines 
the will, when man is distracted with different desires." Here is a fallacy of like kind 
with that which has led men to resolve all motives into selfishness. Uneasiness, mental 
or bodily, is a -powerful motive in determining the will, but it is not the only motive. 
The passion of maternal love which urges a mother to caress and protect her child, 
is surely a feeling very different from the pain which induces a child to withdraw its 
finger from the flame of a candle. To describe the two feelings by the same term 
uneasiness, tends only to confusion both of thought and word. If the doctrine of Locke 
be true, a man is in a state of absolute moral necessity— a conclusion, I think, directly 
contrary to reason and to our own experience — Again; the doctrine, even in extreme 
cases, is not true. A man of courage will sometimes endure the protracted torture 
of a surgical operation without flinching. But no one will, surely, say, that the re- 
membrance of past suffering, or the hope of future good, is at the moment a more 
intense uneasiness than the pain inflicted by the surgeon's knife. In such a case the 
will is determined by the hope of future good, and directly against the impulse of 
present uneasiness. 

Locke saw clearly that the will is not generally determined by reason, pointing out 
to us the greatest positive good : and he was thence led to the theory above stated ; 
which, however inadequate to explain all the active principles of our nature, has in it 
much truth ; and ought to have modified several of the opinions advanced in the 
latter part of his work. (Book iv. Chap. 17, 18, 19.) Describing the diflferent 
grounds of assent, he well distinguishes reason and faith from each other. " Reason 
is natural revelation, whereby the eternal Father of light communicates to mankind 
that portion of truth which he has laid within the reach of their natural faculties. 
Revelation is natural reason enlarged by a new set of discoveries communicated 
by God immediately ; which reason vouches the truth of, by the testimony and 
proofs it gives that they come from God." Faith, according to the same author, 
is the assent to any proposition, coming directly from God in the way of revelation. 
But he forgets that religion is a rule of life, and that faith is worthless unless it influence 
the will : yet, on his own system, the will is never determined by a mere perception 
of the greatest positive good. In short, whatever practical view we take of human 
nature, faith, in the sense in which the word is used by Locke, is of no value unless 
there be added to it some of that very element of assent which he condemns under the 
name of enthusiasm. Without the co-operation of the affections, the influence of Chris- 
tian rule would soon be extinguished within the bosom — would go out like fire in 
a damp vault for want of the air of heaven to keep it burning. I have thought it right 
to point out this inconsistency, because it involves consequences of great importance : 
and the chapters last referred to, are written with an energy and spirit most captivating 
to the judgment of young minds. 



60 

the judgment of conscience declaring to us that we are re- 
sponsible for our deeds, is recorded in the language and in- 
stitutions of every civilized nation in the history of the world. 
If this does not satisfy the metaphysician, it is at least enough 
for the Christian moralist ; whose rule of life is simple, and 
whose light is clear. 

Leaving, however, all dark questions connected with the 
determination of the human will ; let us for a moment con- 
sider men as they are, and the obvious motives of their actions. 
However they may differ in the natural strength or cultivation 
of their individual powers, there are the same essential elements 
in all ; and morally speaking one man seems to be distinguish- 
ed from another, only by the direction and expansion he has 
given to his innate faculties, and the governing power he has 
gained over them. We see one obeying the movements of 
brute passion — habitually disregarding others, and seeking 
only his own sensual gratification. In calling such a one 
selfish we use a term of unqualified reproach ; and he stands 
convicted, not merely by our own moral judgment, but by 
the recorded sentence of every age and country. Another 
may be selfish in a different way. He may seek some end his 
natural feelings and his reason pronounce to be good; but 
he seeks that end immoderately, and without reference to the 
well-beinsr of his fellow-men. Such a man is called selfish, 
when we estimate his life by that perfect rule which tells him 
to love his neighbour as himself; or even when we try his 
motives by the humble standard exhibited in the conduct 
of the world ; and in the latter case, though the word selfish 
be used only in a relative sense, it is still adopted by us as 
a term of reproach. 

But if selfish passions have exercised a predominating 
influence over the conduct of mankind ; there are other motives 
in our moral nature, leading to acts of self-denial, and to 
ends connected only with the good of others. Benevolent 



61 

affection — a desire for the well-being of others, is a natural 
feeling of the soul, and even the basest of mankind will 
sometimes manifest its partial influence. It comes not by 
teaching, for it is perhaps first seen as a mere animal instinct : 
neither is it the fruit of reason or calculation ; for however 
choked it may be, in common cases, by our baser passions, 
and kept down by motives returning only into self; it some- 
times becomes a strong predominating feeling, leading us into 
acts contrary both to reason and to our worldly interest. 
Can we then, without a gross abuse of words, confound acts 
originating in benevolent affections, with those that spring 
from brute passion or the lust of worldly gain ? Cruelty 
and pity, selfishness and generosity, are words in the voca- 
bulary of every tongue; and are placed there, only because 
they are wanted in the interchange of thought, and in the 
description of what is ever before us in our commerce with 
mankind. 

All the phenomena of the material world originate in 
laws of nature, acting either singly or in combination : but 
to designate all these laws by one name, so far from con- 
tributing to philosophic clearness, would prove in us an 
utter confusion of thought, and an incapacity for understand- 
ing the use of general terms. — So also in the immaterial world, 
the determination of the will takes place in accordance with 
the laws of man's moral and intellectual nature, and his actions 
correspond with the passions and affections working within 
his bosom. But if the actions of man exhibit all the shades 
of character recorded in written language — then also must 
the passions and affections be as varied ; and to designate 
them all by one name (hitherto defining only what is base 
and sordid), would, I think, argue a distorted view of human 

nature, arising out of moral obliquity or judicial blindness 

An utilitarian philosopher acts wisely, indeed, in hiding the 
deformity of his moral code by confounding the distinctions 



()2 



between right and wrong : and should his system ever triumph 
in society, it can only be, by defacing the beauty of language, 
as well as by destroying the moral dignity of man. 

How a Christian can resolve all actions into the effects 
of mere selfish passion is more than I can comprehend. The 
Head of our Church, while he had the form of man, shewed 
not in one act the element of selfish feeling. The love of 
man was the principle of his life — the beginning and the end 
of his ministration. Are we not told to walk even as our 
Saviour walked — to make his example our rule of life .'' 
And is it not true, that the Apostles of our religion, warmed 
by the spirit of their Master, went about doing good — spent 
their lives in works of self-denial, recommending themselves 
as ministers of Christ, by pureness, by knowledge, by long- 
suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, 
by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of 
righteousness on the right hand and^ on the left ? * To call 
such men selfish, is to desecrate our language, to blind our 
moral sense, and to insult all the better feelings of our nature. 
A man may be saved from the commission of crime through 
fear — he may do his duty through the hope of reward — 
but as the will is ruled mainly by the affections, he cannot 
go on consistently in the right way unless they be enlisted 
on the side of his duty : and until he reaches that condition, 
he is not for one moment in a state of safety, nor do his 
principles resemble, even in degree, those exhibited by the high 
examples of Christian love. 

Coming down, however, to men as seen in common life, 
we find that selfish passion too often triumphs over all their 
better feelings, and desolates the moral aspect of the world. 
There is no fear that they will ever be too kind or generous : 
now, at least, all fear is from another quarter. Still it is 
not true that they act exclusively on a selfish rule. They 

* -2 Cor. vi. 6, 7. 



63 



cannot destroy all those kindly elements of their nature which 
lead them to mingle their own happiness with that of others. 
In ordinary cases they act on mixed motives ; and their prac- 
tical standard of right and wrong is the opinion of their fellow- 
men. No wonder that worldly minds should take their rule 
of life from the world's opinion. And how operative this rule 
is upon the human heart, may be seen in the patient endurance 
of the captive savage on the bed of torture — in the courageous 
acts of which even vulgar minds are capable when hurried on by 
the applauding sympathy of those around them — in the fan- 
tastic but high-minded chivalry of the middle ages — in the 
heroic deeds of self-devotion adorning the history of Greece 
and Rome. Sentiments of honor, founded on opinion, have 
ever been among the living springs of national glory — and 
should any one doubt their power in our days, he has only 
to reflect, how often the love of life, the suggestions of con- 
science, and the hopes of the favor of God have all been swept 
away before them. 

Let me not be misunderstood ; I am not commending the 
law of honor as the rule of a Christian's life, I am only speak- 
ing of its power : and while its power exists in society, it is of 
the utmost consequence that its rule be as elevated as is com- 
patible with its worldly nature. Whatever exalts the national 
sentiments, and extends the dominion of conscience by working 
on the better feelings, must practically influence the moral 
judgments of mankind, and tend to purify the law of opinion. 
The indirect influence of the religion of Christ has been in 
this respect of inestimable value. It has banished slavery 
from our houses, thrown a charm over the relations of social 
life, taught us to abhor, and hardly to name, crimes against 
society once perpetrated in the light of day, and thrown a 
thousand links about the bad passions of men, who neither 
feel its sanction, nor for one moment think of it as a law pro- 
claimed for their acceptance by the mouth of the Almighty. 



64 

And thus it is tliat tlie law of honor, however false and im- 
perfect as a rule of life, has been exalted and purified by the 
law of God. 

If the poet's song inflamed, and the funeral oration sancti- 
fied the heroic courage of the citizens of Greece and Rome, 
they were taught also to believe in the supremacy of con- 
science, and to regard vice as a violation of the law of their 
moral nature. A lofty standard of right and wrong was ever 
set up before them ; and, however corrupt their practice, virtue 
was honored, at least in word, and was never permitted to pass 
before their view without its fitting eulogy. 

The law of God is indeed written in the heart in characters 
too plain to be easily misunderstood ; and hence, unless when 
fettered by system or blinded by passion, men have seldom 
wandered far from the truth in their speculative judgments 
between rio-ht and wrong. — Whatsoever things are true, 
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, 
whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, 
ivhatsoever things are of good report ; if there be any virtue, 
and if there be atiy praise, think on these things."^ This 
is the lano-uage of St Paul — a man quite as deeply impressed 
with a conviction of the depravity of our nature as the other 
Apostles ; and in fervent zeal and knowledge of mankind su- 
perior to them all. Yet does he never shut out the better 
feelings of the heart — strip us of our power of natural judg- 
ment between right and wrong — or put aside the authority 
of conscience. Still less, in speaking of things honest and 
just and pure and lovely and of good report, did he for a 
moment fix their price by a standard of utility, or estimate 
their worth by any reference to mere worldly good. 

Utilitarian philosophy, in destroying the dominion of the 
moral feelings, offends at once both against the law of honor 
and the law of God. It rises not for an instant above the 

* Philip, iv. 8. 



66 

world ; allows not the expansion of a single lofty sentiment ; 
and its natural tendency is to harden the hearts and debase 
the moral practice of mankind. If we suppress the authority 
of conscience, reject the moral feelings, rid ourselves of the 
sentiments of honor, and sink (as men too often do) below 
the influence of religion : and if at the same time, we are taught 
to think that utility is the universal test of right and wrong ; 
w^hat is there left within us as an antagonist power to the 
craving of passion, or the base appetite of worldly gain ? 
In such a condition of the soul, all motive not terminating 
in mere passion becomes utterly devoid of meaning. On this 
system, the sinner is no longer abhorred as a rebel against 
his better nature — as one who profanely mutilates the image of 
God ; he acts only on the principles of other men, but he blun- 
ders in calculating the chances of his personal advantage : and 
thus we deprive virtue of its holiness, and vice of its deformity ; 
humanity of its honor, and language of its meaning ; we shut 
out, as no better than madness or folly, the loftiest sentiments 
of the heathen as well as of the Christian world ; and all 
that is great or generous in our nature droops under the 
influence of a cold and withering selfishness. 

Were it true, that as we grow up to the stature of man- 
hood we cast behind us our passions and affections — that the 
judgment determining between right and wrong, and the will 
carrying us into action, are but the measured consequences 
of abstract reason pointing to us the greatest good ; then 
might the system of utility have some claim to our acceptance. 
But this is not our moral nature. Our will is swayed by 
passion and affection : and if we suppress all the kindly 
emotions which minister to virtue; do we thereby root up 
the bad passions that hurry us into crime ? Incontestably 
not. On the contrary, we destroy the whole equilibrium of 
our moral nature, giving to the baser elements a new and 
overwhelming energy — we sow the wind and reap the whirl- 

E 



66 

wind — we unchain the powers of darkness which, in sweeping 
over the land, will tear up all that is great and good and 
lovely within it, will upset its monuments of piety, and 
shatter its social fabric into ruins; and should this hurricane 
be followed by a calm, it will be the calm of universal 
desolation. These are no ideal evils. The history of man 
is too often but a sanguinary tale of the devastations pro- 
duced by the licence of bad passion. 

It is notorious that no man acts up to the pure rule of his 
religion — that many are indifferent to it, or openly deny its 
sanction. In examining the effects of the utilitarian philosophy, 
we have no right to bind up its maxims with the book of life, 
thereby producing an incongruous system, offensive alike to sound 
philosophy and true religion — we must try it among men 
acting on worldly principles, and knowing no higher sanction 
than the current sentiments of honor : and, not appealing 
to extreme instances, but taking men as they are, it may 
I think be confidently stated, that the general acceptance of 
Paley"'s moral rule in any Christian society, would inevitably 
debase the standard of right and wrong. It strikes indeed 
at the very root of the higher virtues which in the past history 
of mankind have ever been held up to honor, as the strong 
bonds of social happiness, and the foundation of national 
greatness. And while human nature is what it is, every system 
that is sterile in great virtues will be fruitful in great crimes. 
On this truth history is but a continued comment. 

If we accept a system of philosophy which looks on actions 
only as the means to obtain a worldly end, have we not cause to 
fear that the end will be made to sanctify the means ; and that 
sensual sin, in its most hideous form, will be endured, or 
perhaps impudently recommended, as a counterpoise to the 
evils that are wound about our nature, and enter into the very 
elements of a condition of probation ? Have we not cause 
to fear that private virtue will, before long, be set at 



67 

nought, or sink under the domination of universal selfish- 
ness — and that, in the prevailing disbelief in individual honor, 
public men will become the mere implements for carrying 
into effect the basest aims of faction ? In such a degraded 
state of public opinion, bad, unscrupulous, and boasting men, 
may be elevated to places of high authority ; and in their 
hands the fountains of law and justice may become polluted 
— the sacred cause of liberty bartered or betrayed — and the 
national faith sacrificed to vanity, to personal interest, and 
to party violence. When once sunk to this condition, a 
nation has parted with the materials both of its strength 
and glory — the very elements of its cohesion are passing 
away : and should there not be found ten just men within 
it to turn away the avenging wrath of heaven, before long its 
high places will be laid low, and its pleasant land will be laid 
desolate. 

The moral system of utility resolves virtue into a single 
principle, from which our social duties are all to be evolved 
as a rational consequence. This simplicity (constituting in 
truth the greatest fault of the system), gave it a ready ac- 
ceptance in society : for however impatient man generally is 
in tracing the unascertained connexion of phenomena, he is 
never wearied with following out the consequences of an 
hypothesis. In the latter case his natural pride is flattered — 
he stands forth not as a humble seeker after the truth, but 
as a dispenser of the laws of nature — and he looks on every 
conclusion he deduces from his principles, as his own intel- 
lectual progeny, to be supported by him at whatever cost. 

If a rash spirit of generalization have often retarded the 
advance of physical science, its consequences are incomparably 
more baneful in moral reasoning. A false theory in physics 
affects only our views respecting the connected properties of 
dead matter ; and may be set right, sometimes by a single 
experiment. But moral theories have no simple ewperimenta 

E 2 



68 

crucis whereby their truth or falsehood may be tested ; and in 
their application they may affect the social dignity and the 
happiness of millions, each gifted with an immortal nature. 
These are no ideal evils. Who has not witnessed the effects 
of false principles carried into the social system ? In severe 
science a reductio ad absurdum drives us at once from a false 
position. But in moral and political reasoning, a man must be 
a pitiful advocate whose breast is not hardened against such a 
weapon, and who, in defending his theory, is not ready to bear 
up against its most preposterous consequences. 

False opinions on moral questions are then not mere idle 
aberrations of the mind : for they produce a direct, and 
sometimes, an overwhelming influence on the practical judg- 
ments of mankind — on all the maxims of society by which 
men are generally governed. Not, however, to dwell on the 
strange errors in modern moral speculations, we may, I think, 
conclude that utilitarian philosophy, wherever it is received 
and acknowledged, will teach man to think lightly of the 
fences the God of nature has thrown around him, and so 
prepare him for violent and ill-timed inroads on the social 
system, and for the perpetration of daring crimes. 

To return once more to the questions with which I started; 
I think that to reject the moral sense is to destroy the found- 
ation of all moral philosophy — that the rule of expediency, 
as stated by Paley, is based in false reasoning on the attributes 
of God — that the rule itself is ill-suited to the capacity of 
man — that it is opposed to the true spirit of the Christian 
religion — and that, however honestly it may be accepted, it 
tends inevitably to lower the standard of what is right and 
good. Lastly, we may, I think, assert, both on reason and 
experience, that wherever the utilitarian system (avowedly 
based on a rejection of the moral feelings, and an abrogation 
of the law of conscience) is generally accepted, made the sub- 
ject of a priori reasoning, and carried, through the influence 



69 

of popular writings, into practical effect; it will be found to 
end in results most pestilent to the honor and happiness of 
man*. 

Having examined at so much length the doctrine of ex- 
pediency, considered as the foundation of moral right, I shall 
not dwell long on its application to questions of political phi- 
losophy, especially as these subjects form so small a part of our 
system of academic instruction. I may however remark, that 
as every state is but an assemblage of individuals, each of 
whom is responsible to moral law, the state itself cannot be ex- 
empt from obedience to the same law : and hence if expediency 
be not (as I have endeavoured to shew) the general test of rio-ht 
in abstract questions of morals, neither can it be the general 
test of right in questions of political philosophy. 

" Right is consistency with the will of God :" and strange 
must be our notions of the attributes of the Godhead if we can 
suppose individual and national right to be essentially different 
from each other. We believe that a nation's honor is a nation's 
strength ; that its true greatness consists in the virtue of its 
citizens ; and that the decay of principle and the frequency of 
crime are the sure preludes of its downfall. Truths like 
these are attested by every chapter in the written history of our 
race: and what do they prove, except that God is a moral 
governor of the world; and, therefore, that in the end, high 
principle and sound policy will be found in the strictest har- 
mony with each other.? If in the probationary condition of 
the world, nations, as well as individuals, be sometimes in- 
volved in calamities they seem not to deserve; we have no 
right on that account to argue from an exception to a rule, or 
to deny a general truth attested at once by the voice of history, 
and the repeated declarations of the word of God. 

* See note (E) at the encL 



70 

But if principle and policy be thus in general accordance, 
may we not admit expediency as the basis of political right? 
I reply, incontestably not. All the objections urged against the 
utilitarian principles of moral philosophy apply with three-fold 
force in questions of national policy : and for this reason among 
many others, that men, acting for the state with a divided 
responsibility, have generally a less elevated standard of right 
than when acting for themselves. Were utilitarian philosophy 
ever practically recognized among the leading nations of Europe, 
bodies of men, already base and sordid, would become more 
base and more sordid, under the shelter of pretended principle; 
and national faith and honour would soon be banished from the 
world in the public contests of unblushing selfishness. 

I have before remarked that, as a matter of historical ex- 
perience, religion is essential to the social happiness of man, 
and consequently to the well-being of every nation. The 
Christian religion is however of national importance not merely 
because it is expedient, but because it is true ; and because its 
truths are of an overwhelming interest to every individual mem- 
ber of the state. It is not my present object to speak either of 
the proofs or the doctrines of our religion ; but I may point 
out, by the way, its humanizing influence on the whole com- 
plexion of society. The life and happiness of a fellow being is, 
in a Christian's eye, of a thousand-fold more consequence than 
in the cold speculations of infidel philosophy. 

If there be a superintending Providence, and if his will be 
manifested by general laws operating both on the phvsical and 
moral world, then must a violation of those laws be a violation 
of his will, and be pregnant with inevitable misery : and if it 
be forbidden to man to " do evil that good may come ;" for 
like reason it is forbidden to a nation to seek any end, however 
great and important it may seem, by evil means. Prudence is 
however a virtue in private life ; and a wise regard to utility 
is incontestably the duty of a state. Truths like these are denied 



71 

by no one : all we contend for is — that the maxims of utility 
must ever be held subordinate to the rules of morality and the 
precepts of religion. And to what does this conclusion lead us ? 
Only to refer all right to the supreme authority — to look to 
the will of our lawgiver as our ultimate rule — and to believe 
that nothing can, in the end, be expedient for man, except it 
be subordinate to those laws the author of nature has thought 
fit to impress on his moral and physical creation. 

If in moral reasoning it be mere mockery to use the lan- 
guage of demonstration, and to build up systems by trains of 
a priori reasoning upon a single principle; it is assuredly not 
less absurd to affect the forms of inductive proof in political 
speculation. Every political, as well as every moral principle, 
practically involves the determination of the will, and thereby 
becomes at once separated from that class of investigations in 
which we consider the immutable relations of physical pheno- 
mena. That the will is influenced by motives, no one pretends 
to deny — on that subject enough has been said before : but to 
compare that influence to a physical cause, followed by an un- 
varied physical effect, is only to confound things essentially 
different, and must ever end in metaphysical paradox or prac- 
tical folly. 

Again, discussions on the principles of government are not 
merely removed from the province of demonstration, but are 
encumbered with difficulties, peculiarly their own, arising out 
of the blindness of party spirit or the violence of bad passion. 
We may argue on the powerful influence of the social afi^ections — 
we may assume, as a general truth, that man is sufficiently 
watchful of his worldly interests — we may deduce conclusions 
from our principles, not as mere abstractions (in which case 
they would be little worth), but as results founded in long ex- 
perience and fortified by numerical details: yet with all this, 
which may be called an extreme case of moral certainty, do 
we find men ready to accept our conclusions ? Do we not find, 



72 

on the contrary, that their eyes are shut to every gleam of light 
not reflected from their own preconceived opinions — that the 
small voice of truth cannot be heard amidst the brawlings of 
faction — and that reason is compelled to hide her head among 
the contentions of vulgar passion ? 

Nor have we yet done with difficulties in the application of 
abstract political principles. Men are commonly ruled by habit 
and affection. The love of our friends and of our native land— — 
the love of the institutions under which we have been trained, 
and which, in common cases, give to the mind its whole stamp 
and character — a feeling of participation in our country ""s glory — 
a veneration for forms of government that are blended with 
historical recollections : — sentiments such as these are honour- 
able and natural to man ; and without them, no one, considered 
as a member of the state, could be a good citizen ; nor, as an 
individual, could he possess either social happiness or moral 
dignity. Without these feelings, laws would be no more binding 
than a rope of sand, and the complex and artificial fabric of 
society would lose its best principles of cohesion and soon crum- 
ble into its first elements. 

It is not true that national habits and sentiments are merely 
the fruit of reason, or that they become confirmed only through 
an experience of utility. We might, perhaps, assert that they 
are most inveterate Avhen they are least reducible to any rules 
of abstract reason. Is it not, indeed, true, that in the Eastern 
world many centuries and dynasties have passed away, while 
social institutions, and habits of thought, to European eyes the 
most strange and fantastical, have continued to flourish in full 
ascendency, as if exempt from that power of time which changes 
all things else ? In the great Christian families of Europe, 
similar institutions, and a common religion, have put men more 
nearly on the same level, and hindered the growth of strongly 
contrasted national sentiments. Still, whatever be his external 
condition, there will remain the same original principles in the 



73 

inner man ; and we know, not merely from the evidence of times 
past, but from the experience of our own days, that civil insti- 
tutions are not commutable — that a form of government, se- 
curing peace and happiness in one country, may be followed by 
anarchy and misery in another — and that sudden changes in 
any part of the social system, whatever may be their ultimate 
advantage, are always accompanied by enormous evils. The 
axe of the despot, or the sword of the conqueror, may have 
sometimes succeeded in lopping off all national sentiments and 
cutting men down to a common type and pattern. But such a 
change implies the destruction of every germ of freedom and 
national honor : it can only be introduced under the dreadful 
symbols of servitude, and is the sure prelude of misery and 
moral degradation. 

To what then are we led by considerations such as these ? 
To the belief, that all systems of political philosophy based 
on the doctrines of utility, and deduced by a priori reasoning 
from assumed simple principles (without comprehending all 
the great elements of man's moral nature, and without, per- 
haps, even regarding his social condition) are either mischievous 
or impracticable. Universal systems, like universal nostrums, 
savour more of political quackery than political philosophy. 
They are nearly akin to that system of morals which 
resolves virtue into general benevolence, while it sets at 
nought the domestic and social affections : and should they 
hereafter be found applicable to the government of any 
portion of mankind, it can only be where men have parted 
with those sentiments and feelings which have hitherto sup- 
plied the firmest cement of social happiness and national 
strength. 

In mechanical philosophy we may make what hypotheses 
we please ; we may theoretically construct an arch, without 
considering the friction of its component parts, and obtain 
results, which (however vmlike any thing found in a natural 



74 

condition of equilibrium) are mathematically true, and are 
not without their speculative use. But political philosophy, in 
this abstract form, has no certainty and no value of this kind. 
Its objects are essentially practical ; and it must be applicable 
to some real condition of society, or it is worse than nothing. 
And most strange and mischievous is that philosophy, which, 
in considering the stability of a state, overlooks that moral 
friction whereby its social elements are kept in their true po- 
sition. 

Perhaps it may be said, that the preceding observations 
are mere truisms denied by no one. But, practically, they 
have too often been contradicted or overlooked ; and more, 
I believe, in modern than in ancient times. 

A wide examination of such facts as throw light on 
the statistical history of mankind, and a laborious observation 
of the causes regulating the accumulation and distribution of 
national wealth, are among the circumstances by which modern 
political philosophy has been most distinguished : and as we 
believe that the knowledge of truth will always, in the end, 
minister to the honor and happiness of man, we must, as 
honest lovers of our neighbour, rejoice in the progress of 
economical science. The economist is mainly employed in 
observing and classifying phenomena, from which he deduces 
consequences that are to him in the place of moral laws. 
The legislator, on the contrary, assumes the principles 
he carries into action, applies them to a given condition 
of society (perhaps never contemplated by the economist), 
and anticipates the results of moral causes working on new 
social combinations. Under this view the position of the 
two philosophers is seen in the strongest contrast. The one, 
like the early observers of the heavens, marks the phenomena 
out of which he endeavours to trace the relative position and 
movements of the great bodies of the social system. The 
other, more like the physical astronomer, not merely takes 



75 

for granted all the great movements of the political fabric ; 
but combining with this a knowledge of the perturbations 
proceeding from the mutual action of its parts, dares to look 
into futurity, and to speculate on events, that time may 
hereafter bring to light within the world he contemplates. 
The labours of the one belong chiefly to the elements of 
political philosophy, the labours of the other belong to its 
consummation. 

The great objects, with a wise legislator, are the security 
of the state and the happiness of its subjects. But national 
wealth, (in however extended a sense the term may have been 
used) is, after all, but one of the means of securing these great 
ends. And among the greatest blunders the economist has 
committed, has been a hasty spirit of generalization (and what 
infant science has not suffered by that spirit?), an aff^ectation 
of deductive reasoning, and a rash attempt to usurp, before 
his time, the chair of the law-giver. Political economy has, 
however, now a permanent place among the applied moral 
sciences, and has obtained an honorable seat in most of the 
academic establishments of the civilized world. Surely then 
we may dare to hope (without being accused of rashness in 
counting on the coming fortunes of mankind), that it may, 
in the end, assist in enabling men to see more deeply into 
the sources of social happiness or national greatness — that 
it may allay the bitterness of national animosity ; teaching 
kingdoms, as well as individuals, how much they gain from 
mutual support and mutual good-will — and more than all, 
that it may (when combined with christian knowledge), help 
to lighten the pressure of such evils as belong to our fallen 
nature, and are among the unavoidable conditions of our 
probation. 

No one denies that the moral and political characters of 
men are in a great measure formed by the institutions under 
which they live ; and were it asked, whence these institutions 



76 

derive their permanency and power ; we might reply in general 
terms — only from being well fitted to the social condition of 
the state. But if we take a historical view of this great 
question, we shall see more deeply into the origin of national 
sentiments. We shall generally find that national character 
has not been formed merely by national institutions ; but on 
the contrary, that the institutions themselves (so far as they 
are peculiar and permanent) have for the most part taken their 
original form and impress from the moral condition of the 
state — that they have grown with its growth — that they have 
(like the external covering of the bodily frame) been secreted 
from its life-blood — and that they are the representatives 
of opinions and feeli«gs called into being from time to time, 
and too often during successive ages of conflict and struggle. 
Happy is that country which is rising in the moral scale of 
nations, and where the constitution contains within itself a 
provision for the perpetual adaptation of its institutions to the 
healthy movement of the state ! Laws, like those of the Medes 
and Persians, which alter not, must soon be followed by pre- 
mature decay, by secret crimes, or bloody revolutions — the 
sure attendants of unbending despotism. 

Lastly, before I quit the subject of political philosophy, 
let me endeavour to impress upon you the great truth, that 
no human system can bring the rebellious faculties of man 
under the law of obedience ; and that no external change of 
government whatsoever can make him even approach toward 
a state of moral perfection — an idle dream of false philosophy, 
contradicted by all the records of makind, and directly op- 
posed to the word of God. In the latter part of last century 
there existed a large body of men calling themselves philoso- 
phers, the best of whom (as they were seen in a neighbouring 
kingdom) might be described under the name of moral fanatics : 
for with all the evils they helped to bring upon the world, they 
still dreamt of doing good, In the internal government of the 



77 

kingdoms of Europe, they saw enormous evils ; sufficiently 
accounting on their theory, for all the wickedness and misery 
they saw around them. Hence, they sought not merely to 
improve, but to re-model the whole social fabric of the world ; 
and they looked forward to a time of moral perfectibility, when 
the image of philanthropy was to be set up in the high places 
of the earth, and all the people, the nations, and the lan- 
guages were to fall down and worship it. Unhappily for 
themselves and for their country, the leaders of this school 
of fanaticism were, almost without exception, sunk in infidelity. 
Had they accepted, even in the humblest degree, the doctrines 
of the religion of Christ, they never could have made such 
portentous errors in estimating the moral character of man. 
With all the sanctions of religion, the terrors of the law, and 
the numerous links thrown round him by the domestic and 
social affections, how hard is it to keep him in the right way ! 
And if we free him from these complicated bonds, there is 
nothing left for him but the base servitude of brutal and 
selfish passion. 

Errors like those just pointed out, are not perhaps likely 
ever to rise again into political importance, although they may 
long continue more or less to taint the speculations of one 
school of moral and political writers. 

Having now glanced over the course of your academic 
studies, let me endeavour shortly to give this discourse a 
more personal application. I need not tell you, that your 
high privileges imply corresponding duties — I need not call 
upon you by the love of honor and the fear of shame — by 
the duties you owe to yourselves, to your country, and your 
God, to buckle on your armour while yet you may, and to be 
prepared at every point, before you go into the world, and 
enter on those fields of conflict unto which hereafter you 
may be called. Topics like these are felt by every soul, not 



78 

sunk in sloth and sensual sin ; and by generous natures, like 
those I am now addressing, perhaps the only fear is, that 
they should be felt too much. 

But there still remains untouched another subject which 
by the laws of our foundation, is the end of all our studies. 
To enter on the subject of sacred learning at any length is 
foreign to my purpose ; and I have a right to take for granted 
that I am speaking to Christian men instructed in the record 
of their religion — believing in its authority' — and acknowledg- 
ing its sanctions. Are then our lives and affections in accord- 
ance with the religion we profess and the high privileges we 
enjoy ? Let every one put this question to himself — let him 
look into his innermost soul by the light of the word in God, 
and his own conscience will find the proper answer for him. 
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and 
have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling 
cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and under- 
stand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have 
all faith., so that I could remove mountains, and have not 

charity, I am nothing Charity suffer eth long and is kind ; 

charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed 
up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is 
not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in ini- 
quity, but rejoiceth in the truth ; beareth all things, believeth 
all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.* If our 
conscience reply that such is our temper, it is well with us. 
But if on the other hand we find lurking within us a spirit of 
pride, of bitterness, of intolerance, of harsh judgment, of party 
spirit, and of other feelings the very opposite to those de- 
scribed in this most touching passage of St Paul : then, what- 
ever be our condition and our attainments in the wisdom of 
the world, we are outcasts from the flock of Christ, and have 
no inheritance in his kingdom. 

* J Cor. xiii. 



79 

Learning, almost beyond that of man — a happy power in 
tracing out the proofs of natural religion — a critical knowledge 
of the word of God — a grasp of the sharpest weapons of po- 
lemical theology, may coexist in a mind manifesting hardly one 
single Christian grace : nay, hardly performing the most vulgar 
acts of moral obligation, enjoined, between man and man, by 
the sanction of the law, and without which the very frame- 
work of society could not be held together. I will not however 
dwell on any extreme case like this, but appeal once more to 
your own experience. We have capacities for the perception 
of moral truth ; we know the difference between right and 
wrong ; we naturally approve the one and contemn the other ; 
and our natural perceptions are cleared and elevated by the 
light of Christian truth : our duty ig plainly pointed out, 
and enforced by the most awful sanctions. Nay, more than 
this ; while removed from the influence of temptation, we wish 
to obey the word ; we wish to walk in the paths of the great 
and the good : and yet we are infirm of purpose, and cannot 
do what our heart approves and our conscience dictates. 

The sensualist surrenders his liberty to base appetite; 
binding day by day fresh fetters about his limbs, till they 
have no power of movement. His course of life is often 
followed by judicial blindness: his mind loses its upright 
attitude and becomes tortuous, because it finds no rest ; and 
he casts about his soul the mist of scepticism to keep off 
that light of truth his eyes can not endure. A religion with- 
out power over the heart is deprived of its best evidence; 
and hence he learns to doubt the truth of a system of which 
he feels not the benefit, and to turn away from that 
doctrine by which his own life is condemned. A character 
like this is of no unfrequent occurrence in the ordinary com- 
merce of life. 

But I will suppose you sincere believers in the word of 
God, and not weighed down by the habitual burden of any 



80 

flagrant sin. Still, if you look at yourselves, you will find 
that you not only come immeasurably short of the standard 
set up by the Word of God, but far short of that you 
could yourselves set up by the natural light of conscience. 
Thoughts like these must pass through the minds of every 
reflecting Christian : and, at times, while toiling in his earthly 
vocation, or even when striving after what he thinks his duty, 
he will be weighed down with a feeling of self-abasement, 
and be ready to cry out with St Paul, Oh wretched man 
that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death ? 
Religion gives an answer to this question. We have the 
power of discerning good and evil ; this coexists with our 
natural condition ; but the power of acting steadily and un- 
deviatingly on the dictates of conscience, is not given us by 
nature : and here religion steps in and points out the only 
remedy for this discordance and confusion in the moral world. 

If we be not the basest hypocrites in our religion — if 
we do not utter within this sanctuary a mere idle form of 
words, opposed both to the conviction of our reason and 
the approval of our conscience — then must we believe that 
there is a superintending Providence who governs the world. 
To this doctrine we can make an approach, even by the feeble 
light of natural religion. We must further believe, that for 
the moral ruin and confusion we see around us, God has 
provided a special remedy, by the sacrifice of his Son ; who 
now sits exalted at his right hand, as our mediator and spi- 
ritual head. And, lastly, we must believe that by communion 
with this our head, (sustained by all the ordinances of reli- 
gion — by public and by secret prayer,) we obtain at once the 
benefit of this sacrifice, and the covenanted promise of a new 
principle of life, and a new power of moral obedience. It 
is by winding itself into our affections — by reanimating the 
principle of love — that religion has this power. In expelling 
from the heart its corrupt affections, it leaves it not an open 



81 

prey to still baser appetites, but fills it with its first and 
noblest occupants: and thus restores the moral man to his 
Maker's image and to his Maker's favour. It is thus that 
the religion of Christ does not oppose, but lends support, 
to all those high faculties that give its only true elevation 
to the character of man: in proof of which (were there 
any doubt of what I am stating), we need only cast our 
eyes over Christendom, and contrast its glories with the 
intellectual darkness of every land whereon the light of the 
Gospel hath not yet shone.* 

Finally, to bring this home to ourselves : we are no true 
children of our Lord and Master — we are no part of his 
flock — if we honor him not by the outward forms of alle- 
giance he has himself enjoined ; if we seek him not by the way 
he has himself appointed — by acts of public devotion — by the 
earnest petitions of private prayer, lifted up to him, not only as 
the giver of all good, but as the giver of that power by which 
alone we can root out our corrupt affections, and bring into 
full life the better principles of our nature. Let then, prayer 
be the beginning and the end of our studies ; and so they 
will be consecrated to God. In this way, by his blessing, 
may we persevere unto the end ; treading in the steps before 
trodden by the great and good men, whose names are the 
precious inheritance of this house. 

Feelings of Christian devotion, unlike ordinary move- 
ments of the soul, lose not their strength by repetition : and 
habits of devotion, like all other habits, gain strength by fre- 
quent exercise. But if the habit of secret prayer be sus- 
pended, though for a short time; I ask your conscience, 
whether, during that interval, your moral fences have not 
been broken down; and whether the spoiler hath not entered 



See note (F) at the end. 

F 



82 

in, and committed havoc among some of the best faculties 
of your inner nature ? 

Let, then, this ceremonial at which we meet, be an occa- 
sion of communion with the living God — let us pray for his 
protection over ourselves and over our household ; so that we 
may all be enabled to walk in the light of truth, and in imi- 
tation of the great patterns of Christian life he has vouchsafed 
to give us. So shall we do our duty to God and man — so 
shall we be bound together by holy bonds no worldly power 
can break asunder — and so may we hope that God, as he has 
done abundantly in times past, will continue, in times to 
come, to vouchsafe to this Christian family the proofs of 
his protecting love. Except the Lord build the house, they 
labour in vain that build it : except the Lord keep the city, 
the watchman waketh but in vain. 



APPENDIX. 



Note (A) p. 23. 

The paragraph here referred to requu-es no explanation to any one instructed in 
the firstprinciples of physical astronomy. The following note is addi-essed exclusively 
to those who are unacquainted with the severe parts of inductive philosophy. 

In order to understand the nature and importance of Newton's discoveries, we must 
remember that, in the preceding century, the Copernican system had been promulgated ; 
and that Kepler, after incredible labour, had established the followmg general propo- 
sitions on the evidence of direct observations. 

1. That if each planetary orbit be considered as a space traced out by a line drawn 
from the sun to the revolving body ; this line traces out equal successive areas in equal 
successive times. 

2. That the planets move in elliptical orbits, having the sun in a common focus. 

3. That the squares of the times of revolution of the several planets and the cubes 
of their distances from the sun, are in a fixed proportion to each other. 

It must also be admitted that, before the discoveries of Newton, there was current 
in the philosophic world, a vague and general notion of some material action of the 
planets on each other. No one, for example, doubted that the tides were some how or 
other influenced by the moon : and, perhaps no one who had adopted the Copernican 
system, and speculated on the nature of mechanical motion, could doubt that the 
planets were affected by some action or power emanating from the sun. Before the 
time of Newton, no one had, however, ventured to promulgate any definite or nume- 
rical law of gravitation ; still less had any one, on the assumption of a definite law, 
demonstrated a single fundamental proposition in astronomy. What had been done by 
preceding philosophers, takes no more from the glory of Newton than the predictions 
of Seneca take away from the honor of Columbus. 

If any one anticipated Newton, in the application of the law of gravitation to the 
system of the Universe, it was Kepler, and not Hook, as has been sometimes erro- 
neously asserted. Hook did not demonstrate a single fundamental proposition in 
astronomy ; and Newton, I believe, preceded him m the very speculations on which his 
claims have been sometimes set up. For we must remember that Newton, when a 
very young man, had just notions of the nature of a central force ; and that he en- 
deavoured to prove, by calculation, that the moon was held m its orbit by the sole 
force of the earth's attraction; and failed, only because the distance of the moon had 
been falsely estimated by practical astronomers. Leaving, however, mere historical 
discussion, let us consider one or two of the early steps of his philosophic progress. 

He first appeared as the improver of the elements of mechanical philosophy, giving 
the laws of motion a generality they had not before, and extending their application to 
the investigation of motions arising from the combined action of many forces. Starting, 
then, with the laws of motion (which, in the first instance, may be regarded as an 
enunciation of material phenomena ascertained by direct experiment) his next grand 
generalization led him to extend these laws to all the bodies of the solar system: and, 
combinmg this assumption with the first proposition of Kepler (above quoted), he at 
once demonstrated that the planetary bodies are retained in their orbits by a force 

f2 



84 APPENDIX. 

tending to the center of the sun. Combining this demonstrated truth with the second 
proposition of Kepler (above quoted), he then went on to prove, by a new and most 
refined geometry, that the force, emanating from the sun, must vary inversely as the 
square of the distance from its center ; or, in other words, must diminish in the exact 
proportion in which the square of the distance increases. Having once established this 
great truth, he then proved that the third proposition of Kepler was a necessary conse- 
quence of the demonstrated law of central force. Nothing can be conceived more perfect 
than this induction ; which, starting with laws ascertained by observation, ascended 
by successive demonstrations, and proved that the most striking phenomena of the solar 
system were necessary truths involved in the operation of one single mechanical law. 

By a similar train of demonstrative reasoning, Newton proved that the planets act 
on the several satellites revolving round them according to the same law by which tlie 
Sim acts on them ; and that the moon is retained in her orbit by the same power which, 
on the earth's surface, brings a heavy body to the ground. Generalizing the truths 
at which he had so far arrived by demonstrative reasoning, and asserting of gravitation 
only what was known of its nature by direct experiment at the earth's surface, he 
proved that the center of each planet may be considered as a distinct center of a force, 
not primarily impressed upon the center; but derived as a secondary phenomenon from 
the combined action of every particle composing the planetary mass ; and he also de- 
monstrated (with a skill almost supernatural, considering the feeble instruments at 
that time placed within his hands), that the irregularities of the moon's motions are 
necessary consequences of the universal law of material action. 

Again, knowing as a matter of fact that the planets are not perfect spheres, he 
proved that their forms are necessary efiiects of his own theory : and combining these 
conclusions with the law of universal gravitation, he proved, by most subtile calcula- 
tions, that certain irregularities in the annual m.otion of the earth (producing the phe- 
nomena of equinoctial precession) are the necessary consequences of the sun's action on 
the mass of a spheroidal body. 

In tracing out the consequences of the law of gravitation, and explaining the 
minute secular inequalities of the heavenly bodies, much, no doubt, was left by him 
unfinished. But he had lighted the way for those who were to follow, had given them 
the key whereby the mysteries of the kingdoms of nature were to he unlocked, and 
had laid the foundations of every part of that superstructure which has been since 
reared only by the united labours of the philosophic world. 

The refined geometry of Newton, however beautiful as a mode of exhibiting known 
truths, is now thrown aside as an implement of discovery. " It was like the bow of 
Ulysses, which none but its master could bend ;" and the difficult questions of physics 
are now assailed by weapons of greater power.* We must not however forget, that he 
was a great inventor in pure mathematics : and though he had not made a single optical 
experiment, nor taken a step in expounding the laws of the material weld, he would 
still have had an exalted place in the philosophic history of man. 

Of the theory of universal gravitation, in the form it has at length assumed, it is 
not too much to say, that it can be changed by no hand but that which first impressed 
on matter the laws whereby it continues to be governed. Should man be ever per- 
mitted to ascend to some higher universal law, binding together the phenomena of 
light, heat, magnetism, and all the other subtile agents of our system, still no part 
of the foundations of physical astronomy would be shaken, and the utmost change to 
be introduced into it would be a trifling modification of the mere language of some of 
its propositions. 

* Di.sTOT/)-i(? on the Sturl;/ nf Natural Philosnpliy, by Sir John Hersehcl, \i. 27.>. 



APPENDIX. 85 

In the following words (taken from the preface of the first edition of the Principia) 
Newton has recorded with great simplicity, his own method of arriving at philosophic 
truth. Omnis philosophice difficuUas in eo versari videfur, ut a phtBiiomenis mo- 
iuum investigemus vires natura, deinde ah Ms viribus demonstremus phcenomena 
reliqua. E,v phanomenis igitur coelestibus, per propositiones mathemaiice demon- 
stratas, derivantur vires Gravitatis, quibus corpora ad solem et planetas singu- 
los tendunt: deinde, ex his viribus, per propositiones etiam mathematicas, de- 
ducuntur moius planetarum, cometarum, lunce, et maris. 

Near the end of his book of Optics, he writes in the same philosophic spirit — " As 
in mathematics, so in natural philosophy, the investigation of difficult things by the 
method of analysis ought ever to precede the method of composition. This analysis 
consists in making experiments and observations, and in drawing general conclusions 
from them by induction, and admitting of no objections against the conclusions, but 
such as are taken from experiments, or other certain truths. For hypotheses are not to 
be regarded in experimental philosophy. And although the arguing from experiments 
and observations by induction be no demonstration of general conclusions, yet it is 
the best way of arguing which the nature of things admits of, and may be looked 
upon as so much the stronger, by how much the induction is more general. And if 
no exception occur from phenomena, the conclusion may be pronounced generally. 
But if at any time afterwards any exception shall occur from experiments, it may then 
begin to be pronounced with such exceptions as occur. By this way of analysis we 
may proceed from compounds to ingredients, and from motions to the forces producing 
them ; and in general, from effects to their causes, and from particular causes to more 
general ones, till the argument end in the most general. This is the method of 
analysis. And the synthesis consists in assuming the causes discovered, and estab- 
lished as principles, and by them explaining the phenomena proceeding from them 
and proving the explanations." 

The former of these methods when applied to the investigation of physical pheno- 
mena, has long been known by the term induction : the latter, in one of the writings 
of Sir John Herschel, is called the method oi deduction. This word had nearly been for- 
gotten, but was wanted, and is again becoming current in the language of philosophy. 

In the method of analysis and induction Newton stands without a rival in the 
history of man ; whether we regard the boldness and certainty of his generalizations or 
the inventive skill by which he linked together truths before his time sterile and 
unconnected. In the power of deductive reasoning, he may perhaps have had some 
equals ; but it must ever be difficult to form any just comparison of the intellectual 
powers of men labouring during distinct periods in the advance of science. 

Deductive reasoning is the consummation of exact science, and its importance 
is shewn in two ways — First, in deducing from first principles, physical truths al- 
ready known by observation ; in which view, it not only offers the highest possible 
confirmation of the principle from which we start, but it assists and perfects the results 
of observation. Secondly, in deducing consequences hitherto concealed in the, unex- 
plored regions of nature. Such were some of the great secular inequalities, and astro- 
nomical periods discovered by Laplace — and such (to quote more recent instances) was 
the conical refraction brought to light by Professor Hamilton, and the modifications of 
Newton's coloured rings predicted by Professor Airy before they had ever been ex- 
hibited by any experimental test. * 



* On the effects of inductive and deductive habits of thought on the mind of man, see two very 
original and beautiful chapters in the latter part of a work published during the past year by the 
Rev. W. Whewell. Astronomy and General Physics cnnsidered with reference to Natural Theology. 



86 APPENDIX. 

It must however be obvious, that deductive reasoning can never have any value, 
except when we have to do with the laws of fixed and unchangeable elements : without 
this condition it leads only to the extension and complication of error. In moral 
and psychological questions (for example) where all the elements are ill defined, the 
analytic is the only method of approaching truth. Logic may teach us to disentangle 
sophistry, to marshal our ideas, and to limit our conclusions : but it cannot, without a 
miracle, draw fixed consequences from unfixed elements. Those who, on psychological 
questions, have dealt in the forms of deductive proof, have perhaps done the least 
harm when they have allowed the imagination entirely to usurp the seat of reason. 
Their works may then amuse and instruct mankind, though not perhaps in the way 
the authors first intended. But the affectation of the language of synthetic demon- 
stration on moral questions, has, almost without exception, been followed by practi- 
cal evils ; giving rise to a train of shallow reasoners, venders of trifling propositions, or 
propagators of antisocial paradoxes. 



Note (B) p. 14. 

When the great bodies of our system are described as revolvmg in vacuo about 
the sun, we merely understand by such words, that they revolve in a space offering no 
sensible resistance to their motions ; and even this assumption must now be modified, 
for the most attenuated of these bodies (the comets) probably meet with a resistance 
sensibly changing the periods of their return. That Newton did not suppose the 
existence of an extensive vacuum within the limits of our system, is evident from his 
speculations respecting the nature of light and the cause of gravitation ; and in the 
tenth proposition in the third book of the Principia, he gives the following reason 
for supposing, that the motions of the planets may be continued for an indefinite 
period of time ; si ascendatur in coelos ubi pondus medii, in quo plaiietce movenhir, 
diminuitur in immensum, resisteniia prope cessabit. * 

We may perhaps make the words this note refers to, somewhat better understood 
by taking an imaginary case. Let us suppose a sentient being sustained in any part 
of our system, which is not occupied by the grosser matter of the planetary bodies, 
and endowed with a power of sight as great as in our own when assisted by the best 
telescope yet invented. To such a being, all the bodies of our system would at once 
become visible, and the firmament around would be seen by him, glittering with the 
light of many million stars. But we must remember that each of these shining points 
is seen only through the intervention of a beam of light sent down by it directly to the 
eye. There is, therefore, not a single point in the empty spaces of our system, 
through which millions of beams of light do not pass unceasingly, yet with a ma- 
terial action so subtile that one beam interferes not with another, buu each passes 
onward, as if moving by itself — the sole messenger from the centre of light to the 
sentient beings of the universe. 

In general considerations like these the mind seems to lose its power, and becomes 
almost bewildered : and if we call in the aid of calculation, though we build on de- 
monstration and clothe our results in numbers, our conclusions seem, perhaps more 
than ever, removed from the grasp of sense. If we accept the theory (considered, 
by some of those who have most deeply studied it, as well established as the theory 
of gravitation) which derives the sensation of sight from vibrations propagated 

* Sec also the concluding parts of Newton's Optics, especially Queries 18, 19, 20, and 28. 



APPENDIX. 87 

through an elastic ether, by the visible object to the eye : then is each beam of light 
but a part of a distinct system of vibrations, every wave of which diverges through 
space with a sustained velocity sufficient to carry it eight times round the earth in a 
single second, and each wave is followed by another at so short an interval, that 
100,000 of them are packed within the space of every inch. B'lillions of such sys- 
tems of vibrations pass, then, unceasingly through every point of visible space, yet 
without disorder and confusion : so that each system of waves goes on unobstructed by 
the others, preserving the individual powers impressed upon it, and through them 
ministering to the wants of millions of sentient beings. 

Our knowledge of the complicated fabric of the material universe (even in those 
parts we sometimes describe as mere vacuities) does not end here. There is not a point 
in any portion of our system through which millions of material influences (implied 
indeed in the law of universal gravitation) are not constantly transmitted. That they 
differ from the subtile material action last considered is certain ; yet no one will deny 
that they belong to some mode of material action, though he knows nothing of the 
mechanism whereby they are propagated and maintained. 

Had there been any extended vacuities in the universe, it might, perhaps, have 
been said, that such portions of space were without any manifestation of the Godhead. 
But what has been stated is enough to shew that there are no such places within the 
ken of our senses or the reach of our thoughts. That God is every where is the lan- 
guage of revealed religion ; that God manifests his power every where is, in like man- 
ner, the voice of natural religion spoken through the universal domination of material 
laws. 

Considerations like these fill the mind with feelings of the vastness of the power 
and skill employed in the mechanism of the world ; yet, of the great Architect himself 
and of the materials employed by him, they give no adequate notion whatsoever. Still 
we are (in part at least) peraiitted to ascend up to the laws impressed on matter, and to 
see how they have been adapted to each other, so as to work together for a common 
end, and to minister to the wants of man and his fellow beings ; and this is enough for 
the argument built upon such knowledge. 

Truth depends not on authority : but it may be well to fortify this conclusion by 
two quotations from the latter part of Newton's Optics. " Though every true step 
made in this philosophy brings us not immediately to the knowledge of the first Cause, 
yet it brings us nearer to it, and on that account is to be highly valued." Again, he 
writes, " If natural philosophy in all its parts, by pursuing this method (of analysis 
and induction), shall at length be perfected, the bounds of moral philosophy will be 
also enlarged. For, so far as we can know by natural philosophy what is the first 
Cause, what power he has over us, and what benefits we receive from him ; so far our 
duty towards him, as well as towards one another, will appear to us by the light of 
nature." 



Note (C) p. 27. 

It has been sometimes objected to natural religion that it misleads men by a dim 
and deceitful light, on matters clearly put before them in the word of God. The ob- 
jection is somid, so far as it applies to those who set up natural, in the place of revealed 
truth : but it is invalid m any other sense, as it strikes at the root of all knowledge that 
is not religious. If the conclusions of natural religion be true, then must they well de- 
serve our study ; and they are of no small moral worth, provided they be kept in their 



88 APPENDIX. 

proper place, and in subordination to truths of a higher kind. Were all men honest be- 
lievers in the word of God, then could the inductions of natural religion add nothing to 
the strength of their convictions of his being and providence. But to doubting minds, 
entangled in the mazes of a false philosophy, or lost perhaps in sense, and unused to 
any severe exercise of thought, the ready inductions of natural religion may bring con- 
victions of the greatest moral worth — at moments too, when proofs of a different kind 
would be denied all access to the understanding. Bloreover, the habit of contemplating 
God through the wonders of the created world and its adaptation to the wants of man, 
is not only compatible with firm religious belief, but with the highest devotional feel- 
ing ; as is proved by passages, almost without number, in the sacred poetry of the 
Bible. 

The chief ground, however, for urging the habitual study of natural religion upon 
those to whom the preceding discourse is addressed, is the belief that it is a wholesome 
exercise for the understanding. In risuig, step by step, to an apprehension of the great 
laws of the material world, it is surely well for us to have ever present to our thoughts 
the conviction that these laws are but a manifestation of the will of a preordaining 
mind ; and in noting the countless relations of material things around us, and their fit- 
ness for each other, we surely ought not to shut our eyes to the ever living proofs of 
wisdom and creative power. The study of the kingdoms of nature, conducted in such 
a spirit, not only strengthens and elevates the natural powers of man, but tends, 
1 believe, to produce a cheerful sobriety of thought most favourable to the reception of 
sovmd religious impressions. Such appears to have been the temper of Paley, especially 
during the latter years of his life : and in mentioning his name, I cannot but urge 
on all those who are commencing their academic course, the habitual study of his 
delightful work on Natural Theology. It is hardly possible to read this book without 
catching some part of the Author's spirit ; and if this spirit be gained, we shall then 
find the material world with a new life breatlied into it, and speaking a language 
which, to those uninstructed in its meaning, may fall upon the ear without suggesting 
a single appropriate train of tliought. 

Since the preceding discourse was delivered, some very important and elaborate trea- 
tises have appeared (and others are in progress), enforcing different parts of the great 
argument to be draVn from final causes. It is, I think, impossible that any one of 
them, or all of them together, should supersede the work of Paley. They may expand 
and enforce his argument by new and pregnant illustrations ; and they may supply some 
deficiencies in his work, especially in the part that treats of the adaptation of the 
mechanical laws of the universe to each other, and to the wants of man. With one 
part of the mechanical argument he has indeed attempted to grapple; but not, I 
think, with the same power he has put forth in the other portions of this volume. 

To comment on the treatises just alluded to would be quite out of place in a note 
like this : but I may be allowed to rejoice, in common with many other Members of 
the University, at the appearance of a work (referred to in a former note, p. 85) which, 
combining a philosophic view of the highest generalizations of exact science with 
an original and well-sustained argument drawn from the universal proofs of wisdom 
and design, falls in admirably with the course of reading of our best class of students. 
It is assuredly not too much to say, that this author has well earned the honor of filling 
up a chasm in the moral literature of his country. 

Paley has stated with his usual clearness and skill the importance of comparative 
anatomy to the doctrine of final causes. * The philosophic anatomist tells us that the 
organs of each animal may be described as parts of a machine well fitted togetlier, and 

* Natural Theology, Chap. xii. 



APPENDIX. 89 

exactly suited to the functions they have to perform. He reasons from the function to 
the organ, or from the organ to the function, with perfect confidence ; and in cases too 
where the living type has been never seen. Tliis adaptation may now be called a law 
of organic structure ; and it has been proved only by patient observation, like every 
other inductive physical truth. When once established it becomes the animating 
principle of every department of natural history : both helping us in the arrangement 
of known objects, and in the interpretation of new phenomena. To form an adequate 
notion of the importance of this law, we have only to bear in mind how it enabled 
Cuvier to reassemble the scattered organs of many beings of a former world — to deter- 
mine then- place in the scale of animated nature — and to reason on their functions with 
as much clearness as if they were themselves still living before him. 

In passing from one order of beings to another as they stand arranged in a museum 
of comparative anatomy, we see a continued repetition of the same organs, yet in each 
successive instance we find them changed in a greater or less degree in their proportions 
and manner of adjustment. This most striking fact bears directly on the argument for 
design. " Whenever we find a general plan pursued, yet with such variations in it as 
are, in each case, required by the particular exigency of the subject to what it is ap- 
plied, we possess, in such plan and such adaptation, the strongest evidence that can be 
afforded of intelligence and design ; an evidence which the most completely excludes 
every other hypothesis." This view of the argument admits of endless illustrations. 
To each man those instances are the best that spontaneously offer themselves to his 
mind. The real difficulty is to teach men first to enter on such trains of thought, and 
to shake off that torpor in which their senses seem often to be steeped. Paley's in- 
stances are well put, and full of meaning : I will endeavour to add one or two familiar 
examples to them, though at the risk of extending this note to an unreasonable length. 

Of all the solid parts of the animal frame, the most obviously mechanical are the 
jaws and teeth ; we know, in each instance, the office they have to perform, and we 
know that they perform it well. Let us then examine, in a museum of anatomy, the 
jaws of some one order of animals — for example, the carnivorous. In each instance we 
find cutting teeth in front, sharp fangs on the sides, and molar teeth in the back part of 
the jaws. The molar teeth rise into sharp lance-shaped points of hard enamel, and 
overlap each other in the upper and lower jaw, like the edges of a pair of shears. We 
see at once an apparatus well fitted for tearing and for clipping flesh, and, in some 
cases, fitted also for cracking bones ; but not at all suited for grinding the seeds or 
stalks of vegetables. Let us then observe the manner in which the jaws are fitted to 
one another. At each end of the lower jaw rises a well defined transverse process, 
working in a correspondmg depression of the skull ; in short the jaws work together 
by a firm hinge, allowing them to open and shut like a pair of shears, but ad- 
mitting of no grinding motion. That such an articulation is important for the car- 
nivorous animal no one can doubt, who has observed how ill a pair of scissars perform 
their office with a loose hinge. Thus we see, from one end to the other, an imple- 
ment well suited for its work, and all its parts in good adjustment. But all these nice 
adjustments would be lost, were there not levers attached to the jaw, and muscles to 
work the levers — were not each part of the animal frame adapted to all the other 
parts — and were not the instincts and appetites of the animal such as are fitted to give 
to this frame-work its appropriate movement. 

Let us then turn to another order of animals of strongly contrasted habits — for ex- 
ample, the ruminating. We find the lower jaw armed with incisor teeth, working 
against a bard callous pad, placed upon the upper. This prevents the animal from in- 
flicting a severe bite, but enables it readily to crop grass and to tear off the stalks of 
vegetables. The sharp fangs are wanting ; but, were this the place for the observa- 



90 APPENDIX. 

tion, we might shew how it is protected from the fiercer beasts by the instinct of fear 
combined with acute senses and great fleetness — by gregarious habits — and by formi- 
dable weapons of defence placed on its brow, and given, be it observed, to none of the 
carnivorous tribes. Its flat topped molar teeth are not formed for cutting, but for 
grinding; and its jaws are loosely fitted together, so as to allow of a grinding move- 
ment. With a change of form in one part, is a change of adjustment m another, and 
the parts continue to work well together. Had the articulation of the carnivorous jaw 
remained unchanged, the herbivorous tooth could not have performed its office. But 
we have not yet done with the adjustments. In the ruminating animal, the enamel is 
not all placed on the top of the tooth, as in the carnivorous ; but is arranged in deep 
vertical layers, alternating with bony matter ; and this arrangement, in all states of the 
tooth, secures a rough grinding surface. These layers are arranged in irregular curves 
running lengthwise in the jaw, and their convex and concave portions are so deli- 
cately opposed in the upper and lower jaw, as to produce, during a lateral movement 
(like that of a cow chewing the cud), the greatest possible quantity of friction. Again, 
we might go on and shew the adaptation of the muscles of the head to the apparatus 
here described ; and, beginning with the jaw, we might go through the whole animal 
frame and prove that all the parts were skilfully contrived and fitted together so as to 
minister to the wants of the beings they belong to. 

Let us next see what is the structure of the jaw in animals, of some different and 
intermediate order. Perhaps the best for our selection, are the rodentia, or gnawers. 
Like the ruminating animals, they are without fangs; but they have long sharp 
cutting teeth, meeting together like a pair of pinchers. That these implements are 
useful to the creatures possessing them, no one can doubt. It is by their help that 
the beaver saws down a tree for his water-dam, that the rat gnaws his way through 
a board, and that the squirrel drills a hole through the shell of a nut, and extracts 
the kernel. Most of the animals of this order are herbivorous, and therefore grind 
their food with flat-topped molar teeth. But how is this duty to be performed, as the 
front teeth lock together in such a way as to make a transverse grinding movement 
almost impossible ? It is provided for by a new adjustment. A process of the lower 
jaw works in a depression of the skull, as in the carnivorous order. The articulation 
admits however of more play, and its direction instead of being transverse, is length- 
wise, and thus allows the lower jaw to rub, like a carpenter's plane, backwards and 
forwards upon the upper. Every one must have been struck with this movement who 
has seen a rabbit eating the leaf of a cabbage. The work of nature would stiU be 
left incomplete, were there not also a corresponding adjustment in the enamel of each 
tooth. We find then, on inspection, that the enamel of the molar teeth is arranged in 
vertical layers (as in the ruminantia) and that they form a good grinding surface ; 
but the direction of the layers is now transverse to the jaw. This is what it ought to 
be, in order that the teeth may work to the best advantage. The layers of enamel are 
transverse to the teeth, for the same reason that the iron of a carpenter's plane is trans- 
verse to the direction in which the workman uses it. But this is not the only new 
adjustment in the teeth of those animals. The incisors being implements of perpetual 
use, are renewed by perpetvtal growth ; there is a special provision for their support in a 
bent socket, and being enamelled only in front they are always kept sharp. By the 
very act of gnawing, the hinder part of the incisor wears away quicker than the fore 
part, and in that way always preserves a sharp inclined edge like that of an adze or 
chisel — the very form that is wanted by the anijnal. It is not enough to say that all 
these adjustments are complete ; what would be their value, were not the muscular 
frame also fitted to them, and the animal powers such as to call them into action ? 

These instances are among the most obvious and well-known, in comparative 
anatomy, and have been quoted on that very account. The same kind of reasoning 



APPENDIX. 91 

might be applied to the organs of all animated beings ; and there is literally no end 
to the examples of mechanical adjustment. Considered in this way, they put the 
proofs of contrivance and design in the clearest pomt of view, and give the argument 
a unity and connexion it cannot have by the mere consideration of detached instances. 

Once for all, and by way of recapitulation, we see tlie proofs of wisdom and design 
in the structure of every being endowed with life. The argument is cumulative; 
each instance being perfect in its kiud. We see the proofs of wisdom still more clearly 
when we review the classes and orders of animated nature ; for we find the God of 
nature working upon a plan, and adapting the same organs to different ends, by 
a series of delicate mechanical adjustments. Our argument gains strength as we 
ascend to a consideration of the mechanical laws impressed on matter : for law implies 
a lawgiver, and without that notion the word law is without meaning. Still more 
strengthened is our argument as we learn to comprehend the exquisite adaptation of 
these laws to the organs and functions of all living beings. We see, then, tlirough all 
nature, animate and inanimate, but one unbroken impress of wisdom and power : and 
the conclusion at which man thus arrives, elevates his intellectual condition, and 
falls in with the appetencies of his moral nature. Surely then we may conclude 
with Paley, that the world around us proceeds from design and intelligence — "intelli- 
gence properly and strictly so called, including under that name foresight, consider- 
ation, and reference to utility."..." After all the schemes of a reluctant philosophy, the 
necessary resort is to a Deity. The marks of design are too strong to be gotten over — 
design must have a designer — that designer must have been a person — that person 
is God."* 



Note (D) p. 36. 

In confirmation of what is stated in pages 35 and 3fi, I may refer the Reader to 
Xenophpn's Memorabilia, Book I. Chap. iv. The following extract shews Socrates' 
strong and graphic manner of puttmg the argument from final causes. 

Tcui/ oe aTeKfidpToi^ h^ovTuiv, otov eveKci 6o•^-^, kuI twi/ (pavepws eir' (jcKpeKeia 
ovTWV, iroTepa tu)(')s koi iroTepa •yi/6ofti(9 'ipya KpLvei^ ; — TlpiireL fikv to. eir' uKpeKeia 
yevofxeva yvcofxi]i epya elvai. — Ovkovv oonei aoi 6 e^ djO)(jjs ttoliJov dvdpwTrovs iir' 
wcpeKcia TrposdelvaL ain-ote, 5t' col/ aia-QdvovTaL, eKacTTa, 6(pda\/jiov9 fxhv, oi'sO' upav 
Tct opwrd, (joTa Se, w^'T aKoveiv Ta aKovcrTa ; dcr/xcoi' ye ixr\v, el (U?j joti/es irporeTedrjcrav, 
TL av rifjCiv o(pe\o9 fjv ; Tts 6' dv aicr0i7o-ts 7]v yXvKecov Kal dpifxewv koI irdvTwv twv 
Sia (TTOfxaTO^ rjSeijov, ei fj.ii yXtoT-ra tovtoov yvoofioov kveipydcrQi^ ; II|0os ^e tovtois, 
oil SoKel croi Kal ToSe irpovoias epyui koLKevai, to, eirel dcrdevrj's fiev earTLV yj o\J/l9, 
0Xe<pdpoi^ auTiji' dupwaaL, d, OTav fiev avTrj xP'Tc^at ti Sey, dvaireTavvvrai, ev Se 
Tcp vTTvw o-i/y/cXeteT-at ; ws S' dv fXTiSe dvepLoi fiXdirTuxnv, i]6p.6v fSXecpapLoas e/j.(pv(raf 
6<ppvai T6 aTToyeicrwcrai Ta virep twv ofi/ndTcov, oSs /xriS' 6 e/c tjjs K-6^a\?7s ISpoos 
KUKOvpyy' TO ^e tiiV dKor)v oe~)(euQaL fiev -irdcrag (pojvds, efj.TriirXaadai Se /ujjTroTe' 
Kal T0U5 /xeu irpoadev 6o6vTa9 Tract ^toots o'iovs -repLveiv elvai, tous Be yofxcplovi o'iovs 
vapd TOVTUsv Se^afJLei/ov^ Xeaiveiv' Kal to (TTO/xa fJ-eii, Sl ov wv eTTiOvfieX to: ^cua 
el'sirep.'TreTaL, TrXi^arlov 6(pdaXfjidiv Kal pivmv KaTadelvai' eirel 6e Ta diro^wpovvTa 
ovi'Xeprj, diro(TTp6\lraL toiis tovtcdv oyeTovi, Kal direveyKeiv, y SwaTOV TrpotraiTccTco, 
aTTo Ttof aladi^areoov ' TavTa ovtw TrpovoyTLKWs ireirpayixeva, dTropeTi, iroi-epa tu)(j)s 
i) yvoifiy^ epya ecTTiv ; — Ou fia top At', e<pr], dXX' ovtw ye crKoirovfjt.evto irdw eoLKS 
TavTa crocpov tlvos Siifxiovpyov Kal (piXo'^^wov Texut'tfiaTL. 



* Paley's Nat. Theol. End of Chap, xxiii. 



92 APPENDIX. 

I have quoted this passage in the hopes of inducing the reader to reconsider the 
whole chapter ; both for its own value, and because it is in itself an ample refutation 
of an opinion unaccountably maintained by some \vriters, that the heathen philosophers 
of antiquity had no knowledge of God except what was derived through a corrupted 
tradition. 

Were it true (which it certainly is not) that the heathen writers never argued from 
final causes to the being of a God, still we should not be justified in saying that the 
argument had no weight when handled by a Christian. Truths, whether physical or 
moral, are not less real because they have been hidden for many ages, and are only 
brought to light by the progress of other truths. No wonder that the truths of natural 
religion should have been oftener pressed by christian than by heathen writers. The 
Christian makes them not the foundation of his faith. He seeks them not because he 
doubts, but because he believes : for they are the external means of communion with 
a being whom he is taught to love, and in whose more immediate presence he hopes 
hereafter to dwell. It is through these embodied truths that in the mechanism of his 
own material frame, in the wonderful adaptation of his senses to the material world 
without, in the constitution of his mind whereby he learns the existence of intellectual 
natures like his own, in his power of modifying the order of events by the operations of 
his will, in his capacity of ascending from phenomena to laws and of contemplatmg 
through them the marks of pre-ordaining wisdom — it is through these truths that in all 
the world around him, in whatsoever manner his soul regards it, he is taught to read 
an everliving lesson of the benevolence and the power of God. 

We tliink that we have some adequate knowledge of our fellow beings, because 
they resemble what we have a consciousness of within ourselves. Without stopping to 
inquire how we come by this knowledge, let us suppose some one to ask how we come 
by the knowledge of a God : we can only reply, as has often been done before, that we 
know him by his works, animate and inanimate, and by the written revelations he has 
given of himself. Should however this interrogator go on to say, that God speaks not 
to us through his works, but only through the words of his revelation, wherein he told 
us from the beginning that He created the heaven and the earth-, we may then retort 
another question, and ask, what knowledge could mere sounds like these convey 
through the ears to the heart, were there not already placed within it some knowledge 
of the being of a God ; or at least were there not in the soul some natural and inborn 
power of rising to the apprehension of a general religious truth when presented to it 
in the form of a mere abstraction. 

That our knowledge of God is in a certain sense inadequate, whether it be conveyed 
to us as a truth of natural or revealed religion, no one can for a moment doubt. It 
may be suited to our wants, but it can bear no measure to his glory. No man hath 
seen God at any time because he is everywhere. And if he has sometimes, during the 
brief history of man, given a sensible manifestation of his more immediate presence, 
it has been by stripping himself (if I may so speak) of his attribute of 'ibiquity, and 
condescending to put on the semblance of some material power, or the glorified simi- 
litude of the human form. So also in the language of his written word, he is either 
described by negatives, or divested of his immaterial attributes, that he may be brought 
down to the grasp of human thought. Not only in the extent and power of his operations, 
but assuredly also in their very kind, he is infinitely above the reach of man's imagi- 
nation. If revelation cannot, without a miracle, give to a blind man any knowledge 
of the sensations caused by the pulsation of light upon the eye ; still less can it convey 
to the mind's eye any knowledge of God that is not limited by the conditions of our 
being. Surely we may, then, believe that in religious knowledge, there is much that 
is imperfectly comprehended : and if in the natural world each step of discovery bring 
to light new and unexpected truths, we may well believe that a revelation (expounding 



APPENDIX. 



93 



our moral condition in relation to God, and giving us a glimpse of our future destinies) 
must also bring to light something that is above reason — something that is new and 
unlocked for. 

Let me not, however, be misunderstood. If revelation teach knowledge above 
reason, it does not thereby destroy the fair inductions of reason, otherwise the God of 
nature would be in contradiction with himself — A demonstration is not the less true 
because it is confined to its own premises : and if we deny the value of natural truth 
because of the narrowness of our faculties ; we might, by like reasoning, set religious 
knowledge at naught, because it is limited by the conditions of our intellectual 
nature. In one word, whether we argue from man's ignorance or knowledge, we have 
no right to rob him of his inborn capacities — of the power of ascending from phenomena 
to the contemplation of laws, and of deducing general truths — of discerning the marks 
of designing wisdom in the universe — and of seeing that there is over all matter and 
all mind the will of a presiding God. 

It may perhaps be well to consider some of the causes that have led men to reject 
the proofs of natural religion. One cause is the affectation of originality. " The proof 
of a Deity drawn from the constitution of nature, is not only popular but vulgar; and 
many minds are not so indisposed to any thing which can be offered to them, as they 
are to the flatness of being content with common reasons." * This remark of Paley's 
is applied to certain writers, who, to rid themselves of an intelligent Creator, have 
loaded natural history and physiology with the wildest and most preposterous hypotheses. 

Another cause is ignorance of the laws of nature. Man is unwilling to think him- 
self ignorant ; and he naturally enough thinks lightly of the proofs he does not under- 
stand. Religious men may easily fall into this error : for their minds dwell on proofs 
not derived from any study of the material world, and they know full well, that the 
hopes and sanctions of natural religion are little fitted to satisfy the wants of man. 
Hence they reject it altogether. But they ought to know that the laws of nature, when 
properly understood, are records of the will of God, and are therefore fit matter for ex- 
alted study : and they have no right to argue from their own ignorance. 

A third cause for rejecting natural religion is the reception of a narrow and false 
psychological system. This cause has, during the past century, tainted some of the 
best writings of the Ecclesiastical Members of our Church. Let us suppose some one 
to start with such propositions as the following : Knowledge is only a perception of the 

agreement and disagreement of our ideas — we can form no ideas without perception 

and we have no perceptions, except through impressions on the organs of sense. If all 
this be taken for granted, he may soon go on to prove that, out of such beggarly ele- 
ments, it is impossible to rise to any moral or religious truth ; and therefore that all 
knowledge which is not physical, must be supernatural, and can come to us only by 
the teaching of revelation. Without stopping to ask whether man, if such were the 
whole of his immaterial powers, could be a fit recipient for any religious truth, or could 
ever comprehend it, we may ask the supporters of this hypothesis what account they 
have to give us of the thousand abstractions which, by our nature, we are compelled to 

form — of our moral sentiments — of the creative energies of the imagination of the 

efforts by which we mount from individual phenomena to the comprehension of general 
laws, and of the skill by which we elicit from them unknown truths. There are in- 
contestably, in the mind of man, innate capacities for the reception of knowledge 
according to the measure of his intellectual nature ; and to these there are superadded 
innate active principles (absolutely distinct from the passive reception of impressions 



Natural Theology, Chap, xxiii. 



94 APPEMDIX. 

from without) whereby he is constrained to fashion the materials of thought into such 
forms as he is taught to seek after or his soul desires. These active principles are as 
much a part of the inner man as his eyes and his fingers are portions of the framework 
of his body. Religion takes these inner powers and capacities for granted. She 
appeals to them, sets them in a new movement, and makes them the levers of her 
streno-th; but she creates them not anew, any more than she gives to the outer body 
new limbs for motion and new senses for perception. 

We know from our own experience two kinds of material changes — one chiefly de- 
pendent on the will of man — the other, as far as our senses are concerned, dependent on 
the mere qualities of matter. From the nature of an effect produced, we can also judge 
v/hether it be the result of mere material action, or a production of design and skill. 
Starting from these elements, we can ascend to the knowledge of a higher order of cau- 
sation—of what we call material laws regulating a succession of material actions— and 
of a preordaining will manifesting its power in contrivance and adaptation. Whether 
we stop short, or whether we ascend to the highest truth, we are immeasurably above 
the reach of that narrow system of psychology which, in denying innate knowledge, 
deprives man also of those innate capacities and active powers whereby his whole 
knowledge is built up. 

Those who start with a psychological foundation on which nothing can be built, 
and end by rejecting the moral sense, and the power of discerning God in the wonders 
of his creation, ought also (if they mean to be consistent) to deprive man of the 
capacity of apprehending general truth of every kind. Let them, however, look well 
to it, whether they do not contradict the plain declarations of the word of God ; and 
whether, in mutilating the best faculties of man, they do not shut out from religion 
both its evidence and meaning. In plain truth they cheat themselves by the mere 
jargon of metaphysics ; and, without knowing it, they surrender one of its strongest 
out-works, to a cold and atheistical philosophy. 

Lastly, some men have rejected natural religion through mere fanaticism. They 
believe our corruptiou to be so entire, that they deny to the natural man, all perception 
of the beauty of moral truth — all knowledge of God — and almost shut out from him the 
faculty of reason. That the powers of natural reason are in a great measure indepen- 
dent of religious light is, however, certain from the fact — that some of the greatest 
discoveries in exact science have been made by men notoriously not religious. Again, 
religion herself appeals to reason, and has nothing whereon to rest, if we abrogate 
all the natural powers of reason. Were this the proper place for the discussion, we 
might say that man's depravity is in his heart — that it is shewn not so much in the 
dimness of his moral and intellectual vision, as in love of self, in impurity of thought, 
and in the want of an inherent power of struggling with temptation and keeping in 
order the fiercer passions. If we deprive man of all power of moral judgment; does 
he not cease to be responsible ? and do we not seem at one breath both to impugn the 
justice of God, and to contradict his written word ? But with the persons here con- 
sidered, it is in vain to argue. They may, however, be open to an appeal of an- 
other kind. They may see in many Christian writings (for example, in the works of 
Dr Chalmers and the late Robert Hall*) how possible it is for man to feel a deep 



* In mentioning the name of Hall, I may, I hope, be permitted to state that on reading (now many 
years since) some of his wonderful discourses, I first learned to doubt the truth of that system which 
regards utility as the test of moral right. At a time when this doctrine generally prevailed in England, 
he set himself against it, with a power of moral reasoning— with a subtilty and fervid eloquence, which 
placed his works at once among the highest productions of the human mind. While this discourse 
was printing, it was not my wish to look out for authorities; as that would have been but a vain and 



APPENDIX. 95 

conviction of the natural depravity of his heart, at the time that he has sublime and 
philosophic views of those moral and intellectual capacities he derives from God. 

In conclusion, I may briefly notice an hypothesis, put forth, perhaps, in the hope 
of reconciling conflicting notions. * It assumes that we have no knowledge of God or 
his attributes from the light of nature : but when this knowledge has been given by 
revelation, it presumes that we can then begin to reason from natural phenomena, and 
confirm the tnxths of religion by almost irresistible arguments, which may be deduced 
from every object around us. Now this hypothesis labours, if I mistake not, under 
three insuperable difficulties. It has to explain away some of the clearest passages in 
the New Testament — It has to fight for a most untenable position : namely, that the 
heathen world knew nothing of God, except what first came through a corrupted tradi- 
tion — And, lastly, it puts man in a new logical condition unsupported by any rational 
analogy. The inductions of natural religion are of a positive nature, and must be 

either true or false. If they be false, they cannot confirm what is true If they be 

irresistibly true, then must their truth depend on their own proper evidence, and not 
on an extrinsic authority. 



Note (E) p. 69. 

My object in this note is to bring forward, as briefly and distinctly as I can, 
though at the risk of repeating what has been stated before, some specific objec- 
tions to Paley's Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. 

1. The first objection is to the title of the work. If we reject the moral sense, 
and overlook all the inherent capacities and active principles whereby man becomes 
a responsible being ; we deprive moral speculation of all the essentials of philosophy. 
It may however be said, that the objection is of small moment, provided Paley's 
ethical rules be true, and of general application. 

2. He first examines the rules of life by which men are ordinarily governed 

the Law of Honour — the Law of the Land — and the Scripticres. 

His account of the Law of Honour is both meagre and unphilosophical. It may 
be said, that he has a right to limit the meaning of his words as he thinlis fit : but 
his definition partakes of the fault that taints all his system — It gives a rule, but 
overlooks the principle. The Law of Honour is not confined to rules of fashionable 
life. It is deep rooted in human nature — is felt by all beings from the savage to 
the monarch — and its power is implied in the very instinct which leads men to con- 
gregate in societies. Were man cut oflf from all regard to the opinion of those around 
him ; he would be deprived of a principle, planted in his breast, by the hand of God, 
as a safeguard against what is base, and an incentive to what is great and good — 
The principle of honour may have been abused — may have led to much evil. But in 
that respect it shares but the common fate of all the principles of our wayward nature. 



false affectation of research. But it would have been well to have fortified my feeble argument with 
some passages from the immortal works of Hall : and I cannot do better now, than refer the academic 
reader to them — especially to his two discourses entitled Modern Infidelity considered, and Se7itiments 
proper to the present Crisis. In them both, there is something of an academic cast; and for moral 
grandeur, for christian truth, and for sublimity, we may doubt whether they liave their match in the 
sacred oratory of any age or country. 

* See the Boyle Lecture, Vol. ii. hy the Lord Bishop of Durham. 



96 APPENDIX. 

All of them have been abused — Religion roots not out the elements of human nature, 
which are part of God's work : but she brings them under the law of obedience, and 
restores them to that place and office for which they were destined by the Author of 
our being. 

In considering the Latv of the Land, Paley points out, with great skill, some of 
its defects as a moral rule, but he overlooks a most important distinction. Laws are 
but expedients for the well governing of particular states. They are founded in utility, 
and limited in their application. But moral rules are not so limited, neither have 
they the same foundation. This distinction seems both certain and obvious. We may 
further remark, that the expediency of a law must ever be held subordinate to moral 
rules : otherwise we only raise our social fabric, by dragging away the stones from its 
foundations. 

Of the Scriptures he remarks, that in them Morality is taught by general rules, 
occasionally illustrated by fictitious examples or by such instances as actually pre- 
sented themselves. All this is true. The Bible is unquestionably not a formal book 
of casuistry ; neither does it by any means supersede the importance of rules, founded 
in general expediency, for determining questions of social right between man and 
man. Many of our duties in society are artificial, and can only be ascertained by 
usage or positive enactment. But on questions of moral right, not only are the 
Scriptures the supreme authority in all cases where they contain specific declarations ; 
but their maxims are ever directed through the affections to the moral sense : and 
I believe that any man who has studied them, and honestly acts upon their principles, 
is a thousand times more likely to determine rightly on any difficult moral point, than 
one who interrupts all the movements of his moral sense, and resolves not to decide 
till he has calculated the chances of utility. 

3. Having already considered the argument by which Paley rejects the moral sense, 
I need not repeat what is stated in the preceding discourse, (p. 49, &c.) His con- 
clusion is, I think, false ; and his reasoning is of no weight, except for the intent of 
shewing the feeble sanction of mere moral rule. 

In the ordmary course of life, men act through passion, affection, or habit. A good 
system of moral philosophy ought to analyze the active principles of our nature, and 
then shew their bearing on moral duties, and their subordination to the faculty whereby 
men know right from wrong. It may deal in general rules : but its rules are worse 
than nothing if not constructed with immediate reference to our moral capacities — in 
one word, if they do not ultimately rest on the supremacy of conscience. A system 
that defines moral right by the standard of worldly utility, not merely leaves out of 
account the best active principles of our nature ; but makes them worse than nothing — 
a set of perturbations interfering with the calm results of a dispassionate calculation. 
Such a system has no fitness for man's nature. 

4. Virtue is the doing good to m,ankind, in obedience to the will of God and for 
the sake of everlasting happiness. This is the definition adopted by Paley ; and it 
is, 1 think, open to many grave objections. 

In the first place, without straining its meaning beyond what the words 
can well bear, it does not include many important christian virtues ; such 
as self-denial, resignation to the will of God, and voluntary suffering for the 
sake of conscience. It may be said that these virtues indirectly benefit mankind ; 

but the good of mankind is not, at least, their immediate object Again, a man 

may act well from habit or affection, without ever thinking of reward, either here 
or hereafter. Surely such actions cease not to be virtuous ; yet they come not 
within the words of Paley's definition — Lastly, if such be our definition of virtue. 



APPENDIX. 97 

what becomes of the virtues of the heathen world — of men who knew nothing certain of 
a future state, and perhaps seldom thought of it ? We know that they possessed a moral 
nature — that they reasoned correctly and beautifully on moral questions — that many of 
them acknowledged the supremacy of conscience — and that they sometimes performed 
heroic deeds of self-deAial. Are v/e then (for the sake of a mere moral definition) to 
blot out the recorded sentiments and actions of mankind — to destroy the distinction 
between good and evil — and to denounce all the deeds of the heathen world as 
violations of the law of nature, and moral' wrongs, because performed by men, who, 
having no clear revelation of a future state, could not erect their rule of life upon 
its sanctions ? In answering this question by a decided negative, I wish to fence 
myself against an objection which may rise in the minds of some religious men. 
I consider these as questions of morality and not of religion. If it be from re- 
velation only that we have any certain knowledge of a future state and of the con- 
ditions of our future acceptance; it must be from the records of revelation only 
that we can learn what are the qualities of the soul which are to fit it for 
the future presence of God. 

Bishop Butler commences his Dissertation on the Nature of Virtue, with the 
following assertion. That which renders beings capable of moral government is 
their having a moral nature, and moral faculties of perception and of action. 
He soon after adds. That however much men may have disputed about the nature of 
virtue, and whatever ground for doubt there may be about particulars ; yet that 
in general, there is an universally acknowledged standard of it. It is that, which 
all ages and all countries have made a profession of in public : it is that which 
every man you meet, puts on the shew of: if is that which the primary and 
fundamental laivs of all civil constitutions, over the face of the earth, make it 
their business and endeavour to enforce the practice of upon mankind : namely justice, 
veracity, and regard to the common good. Here every thing remains indefinite : 
yet all the successive propositions have their meaning. The author knew well 
that the things he had to deal with were indefinite, and that he could not fetter 
them in the language of a formal definition, without violating their nature. But 
how small has been the number of moral writers who have understood the real 
value of this forbearance ! 

One great injury done to moral reasoning has arisen from an attempt to assi- 
milate it too closely to the method of the exact sciences. By confounding moral 
with physical causation, and by considering moral motives as the necessary pre- 
cursors of undeviating moral consequences, men have contrived to reach the most 
revolting and unnatural conclusions. They have denied to man all freedom of 
will, and liberty of action; and bound him up, physically and morally, in the 
fetters of an unrelenting fatalism. We know nothing of the inner movements of 
the soul except by consciousness — by reflecting on what passes within ourselves. 
In this way we learn that, within certain limits defined by the condition of our 
being, we have freedom of will and liberty of action; and our moral sense falls 
in with this belief, and teaches us that we are responsible for our choice between 
good and evil. Practically at least, we know that we are free, and the sophistry 
of man can never make us part with this knowledge. * To pretend, by any 
subtilties of inductive proof, to reach a psychological conclusion that interferes 
with those first elements which we know by internal consciousness, is not one 
atom less absurd, than it would be for a mechanical philosopher to mock us with 

* Connected with this question the Reader is requested to consult Butler's Analogy, Chap. vi. Of 
the npinion of Necessity, considered as infiueiiving Practice. 

Q 



98 APPi:xuix. 

the pretended proof of some physical law, while the law itself was falsified by 
the evidence of direct experiment. 

Another great injury done to moral inquiries, .has been the affectation not only 
of logical definitions, but of deductive proofs. Paley's system of morals is in- 
cluded in this remark. The subject has been hinted at above, and is so im- 
portant that I may be permitted to return to it again.* There is in the human 
mind a passion for general truths, and a restless desire of deducing conclusions 
from first principles. This passion, while under control, is a most valuable at- 
tribute of our intellectual nature : hut it has sometimes done much mischief. In 
physical questions it has led men to grasp at generalizations beyond their reach, 
and to entrench themselves among hypotheses, while they ought to have been 
moving onwards among the foundations of knowledge, by the light of experiment. 
In moral questions, this passion has led men to false definitions and false 
opinions on the nature of virtue. An excellent but most paradoxical writer — 
not excluding (as Paley does) the moral sense in his estimate of right and wrong, 
but seeking for a definition to comprehend every act of moral obligation — ended 
by regarding virtue as a mere passion for the general good; or, in his own lan- 
guage, as, benevolence to being in general, f But what, on such a definition as 
this, is to become of the private affections ? They lead us to seek the happiness 
of certain individuals far more than that of other men; and therefore they mili- 
tate against this rule of virtue. In severe science a rule which is found not to 
comprehend every particular case, is at once either limited or rejected. In like 
manner unless we wish to surrender all the social affections — unless we wish to 
look on maternal love and all the train of blessed consequences following after it, 
as moral evils — we must reject this definition of virtue, and along with it the 
moral system of which it forms a part. 

The domestic and private affections are the very channels through which the 
God of nature ordained man's benevolence first to flow. His happiness and 
social dignity are wound up in them ; and deprived of them he becomes at once 
devoid of moral strength. To reject them, is to mutilate and not to elevate his 
moral nature; and is not a jot more wise than it would be for a philosopher 
to pluck out his eyes in the hopes of speculating with the greater clearness on 
the general properties of light. The general good of man is incontestably a noble 
object; but it can be promoted by those means only which God has given us. 
And those men have ever been found to follow this noble object most steadily 
and wisely, who have obeyed the laws of their moral nature, and fortified them- 
selves by the practice of the humbler virtues first placed within their reach. 

The author to whom I have just alluded, saw not the obvious effects of his 
own principles. But bold and irreligious men were glad to follow them out, and to 
abide by their basest consequences. In their scheme all virtue merged into uni- 
versal philanthropy — the private affections were but drains, carrying the waters of 
life away from their proper channel — marriage was a monopoly — patriotism a pre- 
judice — and the common bonds of social life but the fetters of ignorance and 
intolerance. 

This is a most remarkable instance of the mischief of general definitions and 
deductive reasoning in moral questions. It was suggested by some striking pas- 
sages in Hall's discourse on Modern Infidelity., to which the reader is referred. 
Those who are interested in the inquiry would do well to consult also the Disser- 

* See above p. 67 ; and the end of note (A) p. 86. 

i See A Dissertation on the Nature of true Virtue, in the works of President Edwards, VoL n. 



APPENDIX. 99 

tation on the Nature of true Virtue^ and the notes in which the Editor endea- 
vours to vindicate the definition above quoted. The attempt, however, is to no 
purpose. In bad hands the definition has led to base consequences : and in no 
hands can it lead to any good, as it is not fitted to the nature of man. It is 
in vain to tell us that the love of our neighbour and our country, if detached 
from a tendency of affection to universal being, is not truly virtuous — That 
attachment to an object, not founded on the comparative value of that object, 
belongs not to the nature of true virtue — That a heart enlarged to the love of 
being in general, includes all particular objects ; and is then only capable of 
virtuous love, when the attachment to each object is for the sake of the whole sys- 
tem, of being. There is, I repeat, neither truth nor practical wisdom in all this. 
The particular affections are virtuous, because they are manifestly in accordance 
with the will of God. By their exercise our higher capacities are matured ; without 
their exercise, no moral virtue could ever germinate. Suppose a man to reach a 
high grade of moral virtue ; is he then called on to throw down the very scaf- 
folding by which he mounted — to strip himself of all the feelings which have 
manifested themselves in his heart from the first dawnings of his moral nature ? 
He is called on to make no such sacrifice : and were he called on, the sacrifice 
would be impossible. * High principle directs and controls the capacities and af- 
fections of our moral nature, but compels us not to root them out. 

5. Under the preceding heads, I have considered the principles laid down in 
the first book of Paley's Moral Philosophy. The fundamental propositions of his 
system, are drawn out in the second book : but they have been examined in so 
much detail in the preceding discovirse, that it is unnecessary to go over the 
same ground again. Some one may, however, ask, how the principle of utility 
can be rejected, if such a well digested moral system can be built upon it. We 
may reply as follows, to such a question : 

First. That in moral, as in physical philosophy, there has been no end to 
plausible hypotheses; and that the ingenuity of man has never wanted plausible 
arguments to support a system. 

Secondly. That many parts of Paley's system relate to questions of (what may 
be called) legal ethics, having no other basis. than the general good. 

Thirdly. That it calls in the aid of Scripture rules— though these rules are not 
derived from prmciples in common with itself. 

Fourthly. That God is a moral Governor of the world — Or in other words, that 
the rules of conduct derived from man's moral nature, and from the declarations of 
the word of God, have a general tendency to secure our worldly happiness. But we 
have no right, on this account to invert the order of our moral reasoning — to put con- 
sequence in the place of cause— to look only to the worldly effects of actions, and 
overlook their principles. Such a system places us in a false position, supposes us 
gifted with a power of tracing consequences which belongs not to our nature, blunts 
our perceptions of moral truth, and leads many men to make a wreck both of 
common principle and common sense. In natural history and natural philosophy, we 
see beautiful examples of contrivance and adaptation. But who would ever think of 
making contrivance the first principle of arrangement in natural history ; or adaptation, 
the foundation of physical science ? In these sciences, at least, all men have ac- 

* Many other examples of the evil eifects of a priori reasoning on moral questions might be found 
in the works of Jonathan Edwards. He was an acute, honest, and pious man, and a most intrepid 
reasoner: fearlessly accepting the conclusions (no matter how startling) to which he was carried by de- 
ductive reasoning from the principles he accepted. For an instance of this kind I may refer the Reader 
to the new edition of his works. Vol. vit. p. 480. London 1817. 

a 2 



100 APPENDIX. 

knowledged the necessity of separating primary cause from secondary consequence. 
And why should they not be bound by the same principles in moral reasoning ? 

a. In despite of a bad system, Paley was saved, by the rules he derived from 
Scripture (as well as by extraordinary good sense, and the kind feelings of his moral 
nature), from many great mistakes in the application of his principles. Sometimes, 
however, his system led him to play into the hands of bad men ; and to take low 
grounds of reasoning, but ill suited to the high tone of a christian moralist. I will 
not dwell at any length on examples of this kind : but it is important for my present 
object to point out some of them. 

(1) The first example of the base conclusions of a utilitarian system of morals, 
occurs among the practical observations in the chapter on Virtue. It is only necessary 
in this place to request the reader to reperuse the remarks at p. 57 of this Discourse, 
as well as the note affixed to it. 

(2) A most offensive instance of sacrificing common honesty and common sense, to 
nothing better than utilitarian special pleading, may be seen in Book iii. Chap. xxii. 
on Subscription to Articles of Religion. These Articles may be true or may be 
false — to demand our subscription to them may be wise or unwise — these are not the 
questions. But shall a man seek the emoluments of a sacred office, and pledge 
himself before God to perform the duties of it in conformity with the word and 
spirit of these Articles ; and then forget them altogether, or try to blind his con- 
science by poring over the inki/ blots and rotten parchment bonds that are piled 
among the archives of our parliament? An act of parliament may give the legal 
sanction to these Articles ; but it gives them not their meaning ; which can be found 
only in the vulgar way of honest interpretation. The preceding instances are taken 
from the moral part of Paley 's work — The following are derived from the political 
part ; where the principle of utility may (for obvious reasons) be applied with much 
more safety, and sometimes with great advantage. 

I'i) Why is it our duty to obey the civil goverment ? Paley replies, because it is 

the ivill of God as collected from exjiediency so long as the established govern- 

ment cannot be resisted or changed without public inconvenience/, it is the will of 
God, that the established government be obeyed — and no longer. This principle 
being admitted, the justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced to 
a computation of the quantity of danger atid grievance on one side, and of the pro- 
bability and expense of redressing it on the other. But irho shall judge of this f 
We answer, every man for himself. * A more loose and mischievous doctrine — one 
more certain to be turned to base purposes by bad men — was never, I believe, upheld 
by any christian moralist. In times of excitement, men are too much blinded by 
passion ever to enter fairly on a computation of civil grievance : and as for danger — 
brave men of sanguine tempers are not restrained by it, but on the contrary, are 
urged by it into action. On Paley's principles, civil obedience cannot continue to be 
regarded as a duty : and if civil order be retained at all, it can only be through 
selfishness and fear on the one hand, and by corruption and brute force on the other. 
Such a state of things can only lead to ruin and confusion, or the establishment of 
a despotic executive. 

An unbeliever may ground his duty of obedience in expediency : but a Chris- 
tian finds, in the word of God, a ready answer to the question we started with. 
Obedience to the civil government is a duty, because the word of God solemnly 
and repeatedly enjoins it. But does this doctrine lead us to the slavish maxims of 



* Moral and Political Pliilosopliy, Book vi. Chap. iii. 



APPENDIX. 101 

non-resisiance and passive obedience ? Undoubtedly not. The Apostles of our re- 
ligion gave us an example and a rule for the resistance of a Christian. They resisted 
not the powers of the world by bodily force ; but by persuasion, by patient endurance, 
and by heroic self-devotion : and the moral and civil revolutions, which they and 
their followers effected, were incomparably the most astonishing that are recorded in 
the history of man. 

Should it, however, be said, that ordinary men, not having the powers given 
to the inspired Apostles, must, on that account, adopt less exalted maxims as 
their rules of life : we may state in general terms (without loading this discussion with 
extreme cases which lead to no practical good in moral speculation), that where the 
Christian religion prevails in its purity, it is impossible there should ever exist an 
unmitigated despotism : and where the power of the executive is limited (in however 
small a degree) there will always be found within the constitution some place where 
the encroachments of bad and despotic men may be met by a moral and legal resistance. 
Rebellion is proscribed by human law, and is forbidden by the law of God. But a 
moral opposition to the executive, conducted on constitutional grounds, is proscribed by 
no law, either of God or man : and if it be wisely and virtuously carried on, it has in 
its own nature the elements of increasing strength, and must at length be irresistible. 
If, however, during the progress of a state, the constituted authorities be in open 
warfare with each other ; a good man may at length be compelled to take a side, and 
reluctantly to draw his sword in defence of the best inheritance of his country. Such 
an appeal, to be just, must be made on principle; and after all other honest means 
have been tried in vain. 

Unfortunately, the opposition to the encroachments of arbitrary power, has too often 
been commenced by selfish men for base purposes. Instead of taking their stand in a 
moral and constitutional resistance — instead of trying, by every human means, to con- 
centrate all the might of virtue and high principle on their side, they have broken the 
laws of their covintry, dipped their hands in blood, and needlessly brought ruin on 
themselves and their party. The vices of the subject are not only the despot's plea, but 
the despot's strength. Wliere the virtuous elements of social order are wanting in the 
state, whether men be willing slaves or not, they are unfit for freedom. 

(4) In the Chapter on the British Constitution^ we may 1 think find some 
examples of mere utilitarian reasoning, where the author ought (in part at least) 
to have taken the higher ground of a moral philosopher. It is impossible to deny 
that there is in this chapter much good sense and sound reasoning. Reviewing 
the popular part of our constitution, he points out the vast advantages we have 
derived from it, and the contingent evils of any material change in the system of 
popular representation. But, the corruption — the perjury — the baseness connected 
with the system — the mean shifts to which great men were compelled by it to 
stoop — the chance that the very fountains of law and honour might become polluted 
by it— the never-failing topics of offence it held out to discontented and design- 
ing men — these things are all passed over, though in the eyes of some they 
seemed to form a deadly canker in the state. Had he considered these flagrant 
evils ; and then shewn that, while men continue what they are — little better than 
the slaves of their bad passions — any other system might bring along with it, as 
great, or perhaps greater, moral evils, he had done well. His con,clusions might 
have been right or wrong ; but his argument would have been, not only m.ore com- 
plete, but placed on higher and truer grounds I am offering no opinion on any 

subject discussed in this cliapter; the attempt would be entirely out of place in. 

* Moral and Political Philosophy, Book vi. Chap. vii. 



102 APPENDIX. 

this note. My object is, not to examine the weight of Paley's arguments, but his 
tone of arguing. 

(5) Near the end of the Chapter on Crimes and Punishments, is the following 
sentence. * Another maxim which deserves examination, is this : — " That it is 
better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent man should suffer." 
If by saying it is better, he meant that it is more for the public advantage, the 
proposition, I think, cannot be maintained. It would, I believe, be an easy task 
to prove that this conclusion is wrong on Paley's own principles. We are, at 
least, certain that it contradicts the moral feelings of mankind, and this is quite 
enough to condemn it. 

No man perhaps ever used the disjunctive form of reasoning with more advan- 
tage than Paley. It sometimes however led him into error. The worst example 
of this kind has been considered in a former page of this discourse : t another, 
occurs in the chapter just quoted. There are (he observes) ttoo methods of admi- 
nistering penal justice — The first method assigns capital punishments to few 
offences, and inflicts it invariably — The second method assigns capital punish- 
ments to many kinds of offences, but inflicts it only upon a few examples of 
each kind. All this is true — But when he argues as if there never had been, 
or could be, any other methods besides these two; his conclusions (whether true 
or false) are not derived from any rules of sound logic, and are open to a charge 
of sophistry. This last remark is not however of much importance, and bears not 
directly on my present object. 

From all that has been stated above, we may conclude, that Paley was wrong in 
overlooking the innate moral capacities of our nature — that the principle of utility 
is derived from false reasoning — that it places man in a false position — lowers his 
standard of right and wrong — and inevitably leads him, whether in speculation or 
practice, into false and unhallowed consequences. In accepting these conclusions, 
we merely assume, that man has a moral nature ; and that, in almost every act of his 
life, his perception of right and wrong is incomparably clearer, than his knowledge of 
the general consequences that may follow from the act itself. 



Note (F) p. 81. 

In the preceding discourse, as well as in the notes affixed to it, my object has been 
to teach, as far as I am able, the junior Members of the University to think correctly 
on the more important branches of academic study. The mere building up of know- 
ledge is labour ill bestowed, if not followed by improved habits of thought. But no 
man is passive during the acquisition of such habits. They exist only where the best 
powers of the mind have been steadily employed in their formation. This is a law 
affecting every human being. Perfection (in the limited sense in which the word 
can be used in speaking of the feeble powers of man) comes only by continued and 
well applied labour : and the remark bears on our moral condition as well as our 
intellectual. 

The studies of mankind have sometimes been divided into natural, moral, and re- 
ligious. Each branch requires its appropriate training, and yields its own peculiar 
fruit. A study of the natural world teaches not the truths of revealed religion, nor do 

* Moral and Political Philosophy. Book vi. Cliap. ix. 
+ Sec abo\ c p. ,5,'J. 



APPENDIX. 103 

the truths of religion inform us of the inductions of physical science. Hence it is that 
men, whose studies are too much confined to one branch of knowledge, often leam to 
overrate themselves, and so become narrow minded. Bigotry is a besetting sin of our 
nature. Too often it has been the attendant of religious zeal : but it is perhaps most 
bitter and unsparing when found with the irreligious. A philosopher, understanding 
not one atom of their spirit, will sometimes scoff' at the labours of religious men ; and 
one who calls himself religious will perhaps return a like harsh judgment, and thank 
God that he is not as the philosophers — forgetting all the while, that man can ascend 
to no knowledge, except by faculties given to him by his Creator's hand, and that all 
natural knowledge is but a reflexion of the will of God. In harsh judgments such 
as these, there is not only much folly, but much sin. True wisdom consists in seeing 
how all the faculties of the rnind and all parts of knowledge bear upon each other, so 
as to work together to a common end ; ministering at once to the happiness of man and 
his Maker's glory. 

Again, a man may be skilled in many branches of knowledge; and yet his 
affections may be wrong-placed and his bad passions unsubdued. Our conduct in each 
instance in which we are called on to act, is mainly determined by the feelings and 
thoughts excited by the things around us. One man pursues natural knowledge, buii. 
soars not in imagination beyond material phenomena. Another sees the indications of 
design, and perhaps goes on to mark the wise adaptation of the various parts of the 
material world. A third, while contemplating the world around, thinks nothing of 
these things ; but his imagination takes wing, and his soul is borne away in poetical 
emotion. A fourth feels with greater or less power what all the others feel, but adds 
to it a movement of thankfulness to the Giver of all good ; and this new feeling, when 
joined to a firm belief in the word of God, blends itself in the animating principle of 
christian love. Contrasts such as these in the emotions of our inner nature while we 
are under the same external conditions (and every hour's experience shews us examples 
of them in some form or other), arise from different habits of the soul, whether we 
regard them as moral, mtellectual, or religious. But such habits, I repeat, have been 
gained only by appropriate training. If they be intellectual, they have been gained 
by intellectual toil : if religious, they have come only by well directed religious studies 
and religious exercises. 

After every new combination, the properties of matter are essentially changed, 
and present a new set of phenomena. It is not, perhaps, too much to say, that, in like 
manner, after every new act or voluntary thought, the soul is put in a new psycholo- 
gical condition. Its powers of doing or forbearing are changed : for things are ever 
after present to it in the memory, and brought out by the associating principle, in 
new intellectual combinations. We know the inveteracy of habits ; and it is mainly 
through the associating principle that they gain their strength. By every fresh com- 
mission of sin, we lose both the power and the inclination to escape from the bondage 
of bad passion : for the storehouse of the memory becomes tenanted by images of 
darkness, mingling themselves with the recollections of past good, and tempting us on 
in the way of evil. Acts of forbearance done on principle give us, on the other hand, 
new inclinations and new capacities for virtue. The mind becomes stored with re- 
membrance of moral victories ; the associating principle is then the source of happy 
recollections and good resolves ; and above all, the soul is taught to seek for strength 
where it is to be found — in the fountain of all goodness. And thus a good man learns, 
at length, to do without effort, and with inward joy, what another, were he to give 
the whole world for the power, has no possibility of performing. 

If such be the conditions of our being, and such the relations of our thoughts to the 
things around us, a good training and the commencement of good habits in early life 



104 APPENDIX. 

must be matters of inexpressible moment. This is equally true whether, according 
to the bent of our minds, the question be considered in a metaphysical or a religious 
point of view. The remark is by no means confined to our intellectual capacities — 
It applies with fuller meaning to our moral and religious sentiments — to all those 
feelings of the soul which call our moral powers into visible activity. A philoso- 
pher may be cold-hearted and irreligious — a moralist may be v/ithout benevolence — 
and a theologian may be wanting in the common charities of life. All this shews 
that knowledge is not enough, unless feelings and habits go along with it, to 
give it its meaning, and to carry it into practical effect. Religion reaches the 
fountain head of all these evils ; and she alone gives us an antagonist principle 
whereby we may effectually resist them. 

In natural knowledge we may mount from phenomena to laws : but in doing 
this we are held by fetters we cannot break — we cannot alter one link in the 
chain of natural causes — we can only mark the traces of an unvarying power, ex- 
ternal to ourselves, and to which we are ourselves in bondage. If this be our 
condition in acquiring natural knowledge, what right have we to think, that in 
gaining religious knowledge we are permitted to be more free ? — That in regard 
to our spiritual relation to God and a future state we may indulge in any fantas- 
tical notions we think fit; while we shut our eyes to the light that he has given 
us, and despise the law that he has set before us ? Madness and folly like this, 
in any one professing to be a Christian (and to Christians only is this discourse 
addressed), would be utterly incredible, did we not see it every moment before us, 
and did we not find all its elements lurking within our own bosoms. 

But if the Bible be a rule of life and faith — a record of our moral destinies — it is 
not (I repeat), nor does it pretend to be, a revelation of natural science. The credibility 
of our religion depends on evidence, internal and external. Its internal evidence is 
seen in the coherence of its design from its first dawning to its day spring from on 
high — in its purity and moral dignity — in its exalted motives fitted to call forth man's 
highest moral and intellectual energies — in its suitableness to his wants and weakness — 
in its laying bare the inner movements of his heart — in its declarations of the reality of 
a future state and of other truths most important for him to know, yet of which he has 
but a faint and insufficient knowledge from the light of nature. Its external evidence 
mingles itself in a thousand ways with the internal ; but finally resolves itself into the 
strength of human testimony, proving that God has at many times made a visible 
manifestation of his power on earth ; promulgating among mankind a rule of life, 
enforcing it by the terror of penal sanctions, and confirming it by miracles publicly 
wrought in attestation of its truth. Physical science on the contrary, derives no sup- 
port from internal evidence or external testimony : but it is based on experiment alone, 
is perfected by induction, and is drawn out into propositions by a rational logic of its 
own. To confound the ground-works of philosopliy and religion is to ruin the super- 
structure of both : for the bases on which they stand, as well as their design, are abso- 
lutely separate; and we may assume it as an incontrovertible truth, that the inductions 
.of philosophy can be no more proved by the words of revelation, than tlie doctrines of 
Christianity can be established by the investigations of natural science. 

Should some one ask how men can overlook truths like these after they have been 
once enunciated : we may reply, that men have often been led into such folly by 
vanity and arrogance — the one shutting from their senses the narrow bounds of 
their own ignorance — the other teaching them to contemn wliat they do not com- 
prehend. Another source of error, on physical questions, has been a mistake re- 
specting the import of certain scripture phrases. These writings deal not in logical 
distinctions or rigid definitions. They were addressed to the heart and understanding, 



APPEjgDlX. 105 

in popular forms of speech such as men could readily comprehend. "\'V'hen they 
describe the Almighty as a being capable of jealousy, love, anger, repentance, 
and other like passions, they use a language accommodated to our wants and ca- 
pacities, and God is put before us in the semblance of humanity. They tell however 
what it is essential for us to know — our relations and our duties to him, and the 
penalties of disobedience : and were it possible for them to make even an approach 
to the perfections of his glory, no man could by looking on them comprehend their 
meaning; and they would be at once uniitted to be the vehicle either of religious 
truth or moral rule. If this principle of interpretation be adopted in numberless 
parts of scripture describing the moral attributes of God ; we may surely extend 
it to other passages (unconnected with any religious doctrine, and therefore of com- 
paratively small importance) in which the fabric of the material world is tlie 
subject of some passing allusion or figurative illustration. 

A philosopher may smile at the fulminations of the Vatican against those who, 
with Copernicus, maintained the motion of the Earth : but he ought to sigh when he 
finds that the heart of man is no better than it was of old, and that his arrogance 
and folly are still the same — that bigotry and ignorance still go hand in hand, and 
are ever ready to entrench themselves in any lurking place, whence they may assail 
with maledictions and words of evil omen, all those who are enjoying a light of truth 
their eyes cannot bear to look upon. There are still found some who dare to affirm 
that the pursuits of natural science are hostile to religion. An assertion more false 
in itself, and more dishonourable to true religion, has not been conceived in tlie heart 
of man. Of other sciences I am not called on to speak ; but having, in the former 
pages of this Discourse, described some of the general truths brought to light by 
Geology, I may be permitted to add a few words in its vindication. 

The Bible instructs us that man, and other living things, have been placed but 
a few years upon the earth ; and the physical monuments of the world bear witness to 
the same truth. If the astronomer tells us of myriads of worlds not spoken of in 
the sacred records ; the geologist in like manner proves (not by arguments from 
analogy, but by the incontrovertible evidence of physical phenomena) that there 
were former conditions of our planet, separated from each other by vast intervals of 
time, during which man, and the other creatures of his own date, had not been called 
into being. Periods such as these belong not, therefore, to the moral history of our 
race ; and come neither within the letter nor the spirit of revelation. Between the 
first creation of the earth and that day in which it pleased God to place man upon 
it, who shall dare to define the interval ? On this question scripture is silent : but 
that silence destroys not the meaning of those physical monuments of his power that 
God has put before our eyes ; giving us at the same time faculties whereby we 
may interpret them and comprehend their meaning. 

In the present condition of our knowledge, a statement like this is surely enough 
to satisfy the reasonable scruples of a religious man. But let us, for a moment, 
suppose that there are some religious difficulties in the conclusions of Geology. How 

then are we to solve them ? Not by making a world after a pattern of our own 

not by shifting and shuffling the solid strata of the earth, and then dealing them 

out in such a way as to play the game of an ignorant or dishonest hypothesis 

not by shutting our eyes to facts, or denying the evidence of our senses: but 
by patient mvestigation, carried on in the sincere love of truth, and by learning 
to reject every consequence not warranted by direct physical evidence. Pursued 
in this spirit, , Geology can neither lead to any false conclusions, nor offend against 
any religious truth. And this is the spirit with Avhich many men have of late 
years followed this delightful science— devoting the best labours of their lives to 



106 APPENDIX. 

its cultivation — turning over the successive leaves of nature's book, and interpret- 
ing her language, which they know to be a physical revelation of God's will — 
patiently working their way through investigations requiring much toil both of 
mind and body — accepting hypotheses only as a means of connecting disjointed 
phenomena, and rejecting them when they become unfitted for that office, so as in 
the end to build only upon facts and true natural causes — All this they have 
done, and are still doing ; so that however unfinished may be the fabric they 
have attempted to rear, its foundations are laid upon a rock ; and cannot be shaken, 
except by the arm of that Being who created the heaven and the earth — who gave 
laws to the material world, and still ordains them to continue what they are. 

But there is another class of men who pursue Geology by a nearer road, and 
are guided by a different light. AVell-intentioned they may be, but they have 
betrayed no small self-sufficiency, along with a shameful want of knowledge of 
the fundamental facts they presume to write about: hence they have dishonoured 
the literature of this country by Mosaic Geology^ Scripture Geology, and other works 
of cosmogony with kindred titles, wherein they have overlooked the aim and end of 
revelation, tortured the book of life out of its proper meaning, and wantonly contrived 
to bring about a collision between natural phenomena and the word of God. The 

Buggs and the Penns the Nolans and the Formans — and some others of the same 

class, have committed the folly and the sin of dogmatizing on matters they have not 
personally examined, and, at the utmost, know only at second hand — of pretending 
to teach mankind on points where they themselves are uninstructed. Authors such as 
these ought to have first considered, that book learning (in whatsoever degree they 
may be gifted with it) is but a pitiful excuse for writing mischievous nonsense : 
and that to a divine or a man of letters, ignorance of the laws of nature and 
of material phenomena is then only disgraceful, when he quits his own ground 
and pretends to teach philosophy. Their learning (if perchance they possess it) has 
been but ill employed in following out the idle dreams of an irrational cosmogony : 
and they would be labouring at a task better fitted for their capacity, were they 
studying the simple and affecting lessons of Christianity, and trying to make its 
maxims of charity their rule of life. — A Brahmin crushed with a stone the microscope 
that first shewed him living things among the vegetables of his daily food. The spirit 
of the Brahmin lives in Christendom. The bad principles of our nature are not 
bounded by caste or climate ; and men are still to be found, who if not restrained by 
the wise and humane laws of their country, would try to stifle by personal violence, 
and crush by brute force, every truth not hatched among their own conceits, and con- 
fined within the narrow fences of their own ignorance. 

We are told by the wise man not to ansnwr a fool according to his folly ; and 
it would indeed be a vain and idle task to engage in controversy with this school of 
false philosophy — to waste our breath in the forms of exact reasoning unfitted to 
the comprehension of our antagonists — to draw our weapons in a combat where 
victory could give no honour. Before a Geologist can condescend to reason with 
such men, they must first learn Geology. It is too much to call upon us to scatter 
our seed on a soil at once both barren and unreclaimed — it is folly to think, 
that we can in the same hour be stubbing up the thorns and reaping the harvest. 
All the writers of this school have not indeed sinned against plain sense to the 
same degree. With some of them, there is perhaps a perception of the light of 
natural truth which may lead them after a time to follow it in the right road : 
but the case of others is beyond all hope from the powers of rational argument. 
Their position is impregnable while they remain within the fences of their igno- 
rance, which is to them as n wall of brass : for (as was well said, if I remember 



APPENDIX. 107 

right, by Bishop Waisburton, of some bustling fanatics of his own day) there is no 
weak side of common sense whereat we may attack them. If cases like these yield 
at all ; it must be to some treatment which suits the inveteracy of their nature, and 
not to the weapons of reason. As psychological phenomena they are however well 
deserving of our study ; teachmg us, among other things, how prone man is to turn 
his best faculties to evil purposes — and how, at the suggestions of vanity and other 
bad principles of his heart, he can become so far deluded, as to fancy that he is doing 
honour to religion, while he is sacrificing the common charities of life, and arraigning 
the very workmanship of God. 

The recent attacks on physical science, and the gross misapprehension of its moral 
tendency, have been singularly wanton and ill timed. The living philosophers of this 
country are a set of sober-minded men, who have betrayed no hostility to revealed 
truth. An exclusive devotion to one subject inevitably makes a man narrow minded ; 
and a successful career of intellectual toil, may make a man proud and full of self, 
and so take from him the best graces of a Christian character. But failings like these 
belong to the infirmities of our nature, and are not confined to any one profession 
or pursuit: they may be seen in the characters of sagacious lawyers or learned 
divines, as well as of laborious philosophers. It would, indeed, be ridiculous to say, 
that all living philosophers are religious men. Like their neighbours, they have 
their besetting sins : but many of them are men of pure lives and firm believers in 
revelation ; and among them may be found some who shine forth as illustrious patterns 
of Christian holiness. 

A sceptic may, indeed, think that the whole system of things, moral and physical, 
has no principle of continued rest— that it has only been jostled into a condition of 
unstable equilibrium, which may be destroyed by the first movement of any of 
the component elements. Such a one may reasonably fear the progress of discovery ; for 
his system wants the essential principles of cohesion. But a sincere believer in the 
word of God has no fear of this kind : for he knows that all the parts of the natural 
world are wisely fitted together — that the Lord of all nature is a being without variable- 
ness or shadow of turning — and that truth, of whatever kind, as seen in the mind of 
man, is but a perception of his Maker's will. 

A man of deep thought and great practical wisdom — one whose piety and benevo- 
lence have for many years been shining before the world, and of whose sincerity no 
scoffer (of whatever school) will dare to start a doubt — ^recorded his opinion in the 
great assembly of the men of science, who during the past year were gathered from 
every corner of the Empire within the walls of this University, that Christianity had 
every thing to hope and nothing to fear from the advancement of philosophy.* 
These are golden words, and full of meaning to those who have wisdom to under- 
stand them. But there are some to whom this great Assembly has been a topic of 
offence. They belong to a psychological class of their own ; gifted indeed with very 
humble powers in following out true consequences, either moral or physical : but com- 
pensated, in return, with gifts of another kind. Like birds of bad omen they can 
croak of coming ills and smell corruption from afar; and by the powers of a new 
analysis — a perverted moral alchemy — they can extract evil out of good and dross 
out of gold. 

Another indiscretion (far different however from the egregious follies I have just 

noticed) has been committed by some excellent christian writers on the subject of 

■ Geology. They have not denied the facts established by this science, nor have they 

confounded the nature of physical and moral evidence : but they have prematurely 

» Sp^ecli of Dr Chalmers al the meeting of the British .Association for the advancement of 
Science. June, 1R33. 



108 APPENDIX. 

(and therefore, without an adequate knowledge of all the fact* essential to the argu- 
ment) endeavoured to bring the natural history of the earth into a literal accordance 
with the book of Genesis — first, by greatly extendmg the periods of time implied by 
the six days of creation (and whether this may be rightly done is a question only 
of criticism and not of philosophy) — and secondly, by endeavouring to shew, that, 
under this new interpretation of its words, the narrative of Moses may be supposed to 
comprehend, and to describe in order, the successive epochs of Geology. It is to be 
feared that truth may, in this way, receive a double injury ; and I am certain that 
the argument, just alluded to, has been unsuccessful. The impossibility of the task 
was however (as I know by my own experience) a lesson hard to learn : but it is not 
likely again to be attempted by any good Geologist. The only way to escape from all 
difficulties pressing on the questions of cosmogony has been already pointed out. We 
must consider the old strata of the earth as monuments of a date long anterior to the 
existence of man, and to the times contemplated in the moral records of his creation. 
In this view there is no collision between physical and moral truth. The Bible is 
left to rest on its appropriate evidences, and its interpretation is committed to the 
learning and good sense of the critic and the commentator : while Geology is allowed 
to stand on its own basis, and the philosopher to follow the investigations of physical 
truth, wherever they may lead him, without any dread of evil consequences; and 
with the sure conviction that natural science, when followed with a right spirit, will 
foster the reasoning powers, and teach us knowledge fitted, at once, to impress the 
imagination, to bear on the business of life, and to give us exalted views of the 
universal presence and imceasing power of God. 

The subjects discussed in this note are of great importance ; and I am anxious to 
take away any wrong impressions which may have been produced by the writings of 
a false and unphilosophical school. In the furtherance of this object (though at the 
risk of being taxed with the fault of egotism and useless repetition) I will add one 
more passage, taken from an anniversary address to the Geological Society, especially 
as it appears in the pages of a periodical work not perhaps accessible to all the readers 
of this discourse. 

"There have issued from the English press, within a few years, such dreams of 
cosmogony as I believe find no parallel in the recent literature of continental Europe. 
It would be in vain to point out to such authors the nature of our data, or the method 
of our inductions; for they have a safer and a readier road to their own conclusions. 
It would be in vain to tell them that the records of mankind offer no single instance 
of any great physical truth anticipated by mere guesses and conjectures — that philoso- 
phic wisdom consists in comprehending the last generalizations derived from facts each 
of which is only known by experiment and observation ; and in advancing, by such 
means, to those general laws by which all things are bound together. They seem not 
to know that inventive power in physics, unlike inventive power in works of art or 
of imagination, finds no employment in ideal creations, and only means the faculty by 
which the mind clearly apprehends the relations and analogies of things already 
known ; and is thereby directed and urged on to the discovery of new facts, by the 
help of new comparisons — that the history of all ages (and I might add, the written 
law of our being, where it is declared that by the sweat of our brov/ shall we gather up 
our harvest) has proved this way of slow and toilsome induction to be the only path 
which leads to physical truth. 

" Laws for the government of intellectual beings, and laws by which material things 
are held together, have not one common element to connect them. And to seek for an 
exposition of the phenomena of the natural world among the records of the moral des- 
tinies of mankind, would be as unwise, as to look for rules of moral government among 
the laws of chemical combination. From the imnalural union of things so utterly in- 



APPENDIX. 109 

congruous, there has from time to time sprung up in this country a defoniied progeny 
of heretical and fantastical conclusions, by which sober philosophy has been put to 
open shame, and sometimes even the charities of life have been exposed to violation. 

" No opinion can be heretical but that which is not true. Conflicting falsehoods we 
can comprehend ; but truths can never war against each other. I affirm, therefore, 
that we have nothing to fear from the results of our inquiries, provided they be followed 
in the laborious but secure road of honest induction. In this way we may rest assured 
that we shall never arrive at conclusions opposed to any truth, either physical or moral, 
from whatsoever source that truth may be derived : nay rather (as in all truth there is 
a common essence), that new discoveries will ever lend support and illustration to 
things which are already known, by giving us a larger insight into the universal har- 
monies of nature."* 

* Anniversary Address to the Geological Soeiety. Annals op PiiiLOSOPHY, April 1830. 






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